Bush NOT Honest & Trustworthy/Republican Lies

[SOS2008]

Not from anything I've read or heard about!

As Astronuc alludes to, I am talking about a Mossad philosophy of target killings that the Pentagon, under Rummy, along with Bush/Cheney, have adopted (e.g., preemptive strike) -- in particular as each defines individuals/groups as terrorists. Here are a few citations on the topic:

Fatal Choices: Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing - SR David - 2002 - Bar-Ilan University

S Gazit - Combating Terrorism: Strategies of Ten Countries, 2002 - press.umich.edu

The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers - B Ganor - 2005 - Transaction Publishers

The Elite Unit of Israel - M Zonder - 2000 - Jerusalem: Keter

Israel against Terror: A National Assessment - SL Gordon - 2002 - Tel Aviv: Meltzer

R&D and the War on Terrorism: Generalizing the Israeli Experience - I Ben-Israel, O Setter, A Tishler - Science and Technology Policies for the Anti-Terrorism Era, …

The Logic of Israel’s "Targeted Killing.” - G Luft - Middle East Quarterly, 2003

If you are talking about detainees in the war on terror/war in Iraq, there are three things you are forgetting: ...releasing people doesn't imply that "the U.S. is WAY off". The US - and the world - are doing just fine..

Wow, that was a good spin. I think you may have plans to run for office someday. In regard to this particular point, the ratio of how many have been detained, the number of years they have been detained, and most of all the number that ultimately have had to be released IS an indication that the U.S. is off--aside from simulating drowning to get confessions.

The biggest problem for the Democratic party is how to convince people who are bumping into the ceiling that they are falling to the floor. Its the reason the Dem's are losing the battle over economics. It doesn't matter how many times a guy hears 'you're poor, you're poor, you're poor, you're poor, you're poor' - if he just got a raise and bought a house, he's not going to believe it.

Saying the world is surviving is not to say the world is thriving. People less fortunate than the few you refer to already have a sense of it, and why confidence is low despite good economic indicators.

When people run out of equity in their homes, which has artificially supported them and the economy (and the misleading indicators such as low unemployment but neglecting to address that those employed are earning less--no, "he didn't just get a raise"--particularly in comparison to rising cost of living), we will see confidence decline even more.

As for the poor, they don't vote and they don't have money to contribute to campaigns, so why the right-wing continues to purport that the Dems need the poor to exist as a party, I'll never understand. Even philosophically, hand-outs appeal to no one. But protection of what is earned, such as Social Security, is appealing. But please, don't listen to this. It is better that you continue to feel blind confidence in the GOP.

Though more and more Americans are no longer convinced:

From "Bush tries to win over war-weary" -- nationhttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14777090/page/2/[/URL]

LIE
[QUOTE]In his speeches, Bush has advanced several arguments, starting with the proposition that the United States is engaged in a long-term ideological struggle between forces of freedom and Islamic radicals who want to destroy freedom. Although U.S. adversaries come from different backgrounds -- ranging from radical Sunnis in al-Qaeda to Shiite militants such as Hezbollah -- Bush has characterized the opposition as forming a single movement, "a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those that stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology."[/QUOTE]TRUTH
[QUOTE]"That's is an oversimplification of the task of dealing with the tactic [terrorism] that is used by many different groups, with many different ideologies," countered Paul R. Pillar, a former top CIA analyst and the author of a respected book on terrorism. "It leads to a misunderstanding of the need of what is in fact a different counterterrorist policy for each groups and state we are dealing with. . . . Hamas is an entirely different entity than al-Qaeda. . . . Their objectives are very much different."[/QUOTE]And with recent confirmation that there never was any ties between Iraq/Saddam and Al Qaeda/Bin Laden, nonetheless in commemoration of 9-11 (but of course) the link continues to be claimed by Bush as follows:

LIE
[QUOTE]Bush this week reiterated his four-year-old argument that Iraq is a central front in the broader struggle against Islamic terrorism. Premature withdrawal, he asserted, could make Iraq what Afghanistan was before the Sept. 11 attacks, an incubator for al-Qaeda.[/QUOTE]TRUTH
[QUOTE]Daniel Benjamin, a U.S. counterterrorism official in the Clinton administration who has written extensively about the subject, said efforts to defeat the radical Islamist ideology have been undermined by the Iraq invasion.

Credibility at issue - "There is no acknowledgment that because we have inadvertently confirmed their claims -- that we seek to occupy Muslim lands, as we have in Iraq -- the ideology is spreading and undermining our efforts," Benjamin said.[/QUOTE]So more of the same garbage is getting them nowhere, thankfully.

[QUOTE]Setbacks in Iraq have soured a majority of Americans on that mission. Falsely optimistic predictions of progress have undermined the administration's credibility. A majority of Americans question fundamental elements of the president's argument, including his contention that Iraq is the central front in the campaign against terrorism.

...Polls show how the political ground has shifted over time. The Pew Research Center began charting early in Bush's presidency public confidence in his leadership. ...In February 2001, 60 percent of Americans said they saw Bush as trustworthy, compared with just 28 percent who did not. By last month, a majority, 52 percent, said they did not believe he was trustworthy.[/QUOTE]LIE
[QUOTE]"People see him as less trustworthy because things are not going very well," said Pew center director Andrew Kohut.[/QUOTE]TRUTH
Bush supporters see him as less trustworthy because things are not going very well. The rest of the nation continues to see him as not trustworthy because of the pattern of lies.

 

[Skyhunter]

This is an interesting piece.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?source=newsletter

The parallels with the torture debacle are obvious. The torture controversy arose because the president wanted to use techniques of torture to interrogate detainees, and he proposed an extremist piece of legislation to accomplish that. Republican senators flamboyantly opposed that legislation -- thus bestowing themselves with "moderate" credentials -- but introduced their own slightly less extremist proposal that accomplished the same thing (legalizing the torture techniques).

Identically, the National Security Agency scandal arose because the president wants to eavesdrop on Americans with no judicial oversight of any kind, and he proposed an extremist piece of legislation (the Specter bill) to accomplish that. Republican lawmakers are flamboyantly opposing that legislation -- thus bestowing themselves with "moderate" credentials -- but have introduced their own proposals that accomplish the same thing (legalizing warrantless spying on Americans).

In each instance, Republican lawmakers are advocating a radical outcome that vests extraordinary powers in the president. But because their legislative approach for achieving that end in each case is slightly less radical than the president's, the media depicts their proposal as moderate and mild. Meanwhile, the Democrats are silent, invisible and completely absent from the debates, which means that the full range of views is marked by the president on one end and right-wing Republican senators on the other end (only millimeters away from the president), with the "middle" being as close to the president's position as one can get without embracing it in full.

Good to know I am not the only one who sees it this way.

 

[Astronuc]

So what's this about democracy and freedom?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/us/politics/23suppress.html
Texas Democrats File Suit Against Voting Fraud Law

HOUSTON, Sept. 22 — In the latest of the nation’s skirmishes over voting rights, Texas Democrats have sued two top Republican state officials over an antifraud law that the suit says is being used to intimidate minority voters casting ballots by mail.

The action, filed Thursday in federal court in Marshall, challenges both the constitutionality of the law and the way it is being enforced. It contends that Attorney General Greg Abbott and Secretary of State Roger Williams are exaggerating the threat of election fraud and selectively applying the statute, enacted in 2003, so that they can “suppress voting by disfavored groups” that generally support Democrats.

The law makes it a crime in certain cases to carry someone else’s filled-out ballot to the mailbox, to possesses another person’s blank ballot or to provide absentee ballot assistance to anyone who has not asked for it.

One plaintiff, Gloria Meeks, a 69-year-old Fort Worth woman who said she was being investigated for helping elderly and disabled voters cast ballots, provided a sworn statement saying two state investigators “peeped into my bathroom window not once but twice while I was in my bathroom drying off from my bath.”

However

Responding to the suit in another statement, the state’s solicitor general, Ted Cruz, dismissed it as baseless and called the plaintiffs “a combination of political operatives and individual criminals who have already pleaded guilty to voter fraud.”

Report Says Education Officials Violated Rules
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/education/23education.html

Department of Education officials violated conflict of interest rules when awarding grants to states under President Bush’s billion-dollar reading initiative, and steered contracts to favored textbook publishers, the department’s inspector general said yesterday.

In a searing report that concludes the first in a series of investigations into complaints of political favoritism in the reading initiative, known as Reading First, the report said officials improperly selected the members of review panels that awarded large grants to states, often failing to detect conflicts of interest. The money was used to buy reading textbooks and curriculum for public schools nationwide.

States have received more than $4.8 billion in Reading First grants during the Bush administration, and a recent survey by an independent group, the Center on Education Policy, reported that many state officials consider the initiative to be highly effective in raising reading achievement. But the report describes a tangled process in which some states had to apply for grants as many as six times before receiving approval, with department officials scheming to stack panels with experts tied to favored publishers.

In one e-mail message cited in the report, from which the inspector general deleted some vulgarities, the director of Reading First, Chris Doherty, urged staff members to make clear to one company that it was not favored at the department.

Can you spell "Corruption"?

 

[edward]

I not only see corruption in the Bush administration, there are a lot of political appointees who are working in areas well above their ablilities. (shades of the Peter principle).

They seem to be in all departments. Fema was the most publicized, but Homeland Security is a close second. The ironic thing about this is that even corrupt individuals can be promoted beyond their level of ability.
Bush himself is the most dramatic example.

 

[Astronuc]

President Dodges Katherine Harris on Florida Visit

I heard this tonight on NPR. Showing their true colors.

The President and the Republican Party are shunning Katherine Harris, who help ensure that Bush won in Florida in 2000. People are keeping a distance, because among other things, Harris has apparently stated that 'only Christians should be elected'.

I think the big problem for Bush and his supporters is that Harris is saying publicly what these people are thinking and doing privately. Afterall, Karl Rove would like to see a one-party state, ostensibly under control of a small group of people who share a common philosophy.


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6135350

All Things Considered, September 24, 2006 · People involved in Florida politics say they've never seen anything like it: Deep in her campaign for U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, is all but shunned by her party. On President Bush's recent trip, she was pointedly avoided and was not invited to travel to another GOP event with the president on Air Force One.

Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) prepares to speak Sept. 19, 2006, at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport in Sarasota, Fla. The candidate has suffered several setbacks in her campaign, and has been shunned by her own party. AP

I mean what's the big deal? She has shown the same contempt for the Constitution, for democracy and for voters' rights as the Bush administration. Shouldn't they be rewarding her?

 

[ptabor]

Transparency?

What's the deal with Bush releasing the report indicating that the situation in Iraq has made matters worse?

This is totally contrary to their past practice of secrecy.

I'm suspicious

 

[turbo]

What's the deal with Bush releasing the report indicating that the situation in Iraq has made matters worse?

This is totally contrary to their past practice of secrecy.

I'm suspicious

He has only declassified parts of the report. Does anybody here think that he declassified the parts that are most critical of his policies in Iraq? Apparently, his handlers have selected about 3 pages worth of information out of a 40+ page report, and have told him to declassify those phrases. You can bet that the still-classified portion is damning.

Edit: Remember that this is a concesus report by all the intelligence agencies in the administration. Such reports should be expected to be homogenized, watered-down, and depoliticized in order to achieve the consensus necessary to enable their release as such. It is likely that the representatives of some of the intelligence agencies supported the inclusion of much more scathing language and had to back down in order to come up with a report that the other agencies would sign.

 

[edward]

As I understand it this information was leaked.

The Nation -- Reality intrudes again. President Bush and his allies keep insisting that the invasion of Iraq was essential to winning the fight against anti-American Islamic jihadists. The government's top experts on terrorism and Islamic extremism disagree. As The New York Times reported on Sunday, a National Intelligence Estimate produced earlier this year noted that the Iraq war has fueled Islamic radicalism around the globe and has caused the terrorist threat to grow. In other words, Bush's invasion of Iraq has been counterproductive. Or put this way: the ugly war in Iraq that has claimed the lives of thousands of American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians has placed the United States more at risk.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20...nation/3124395

According to other links this NIE was completed in April. I have a gut feeling that a lot of people didn't need this report to come to come to the same conclusion. Bush is rapidly approaching a point where he must run because he can no longer hide.

 

[Astronuc]

Bush 'concealing Iraq violence'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5393964.stm

Veteran US journalist Bob Woodward has claimed that the true extent of insurgent attacks in Iraq has been hidden by the administration.
He makes the claim in a book, State of Denial, due to be released on Monday.

Mr Woodward has had better access to policymakers in the Bush White House than any other writer.

In a preview interview he also revealed that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has become a frequent adviser to President Bush.

State of Denial is a follow up to earlier volumes on the Bush White House which have contained a vivid detail of who said what to whom but have been largely uncritical of the President.

Indeed, they have been recommended as essential reading by Bush supporters.

This book appears to be much more challenging, with Bob Woodward making at least one eye-catching and politically damaging claim that the true extent of the violence in Iraq is being hidden.

"The insurgents know what they're doing, they know the level of violence and how effective they are" - Bob Woodward​

Well, of course this is coming out just in time for the November elections. Hmmmm!

Interesting to see how this shakes out.

Well - Bush may yet go down in history as "Dishonest George".

 

[Astronuc]

Someone sent me this link - http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/

Lie by Lie: Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003
The first drafts of history are fragmentary. Important revelations arrive late, and out of order. In this timeline, we’ve assembled the history of the Iraq War to create a resource we hope will help resolve open questions of the Bush era. What did our leaders know and when did they know it? And, perhaps just as important, what red flags did we miss, and how could we have missed them? This is the first installment in our Iraq War timeline project.

I guess people missed them because many could not believe that Bush could become president.

 

[edward]

Astronuc
That is one terrific link. It has a very complete searchable and verified chronology of events.

With great sub links like this one to a CBS video.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml

It is almost as if the Bush administration has dumped so much dissinformation, and so many lies on the American people that many millions acquired an illusion that what was said and done was true. This entire era of this administration has been a well calculated and effective form of mind control.

Bush of course apparently does not have the intellect to be the driving force behind it. The people have a right to know exactly who has been pulling the strings behind that curtain.

 

[Skyhunter]

Bush of course apparently does not have the intellect to be the driving force behind it. The people have a right to know exactly who has been pulling the strings behind that curtain.

Is there really any doubt that Shooter and Rove are the brains.

 

[edward]

Is there really any doubt that Shooter and Rove are the brains.

Shooter and Rove are definitely in the inner circle. There have to be more people involved. They have brainwased an entire nation.

Judging by the bills approved recently giving Bush even more power, it appears that the Republican Congress and Senate are unwilling to defend the Untied States Constitution.

 

[Skyhunter]

Shooter and Rove are definitely in the inner circle. There have to be more people involved. They have brainwased an entire nation.

Not the entire nation, I still have a dirty mind.

 

[Skyhunter]

Has everyone seen Olbermanns commentary on Bush's latest string of lies?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/...e-inaction-in-the-face-of-the-enemy-you-fear/

I recommend watching it.

Here is an excerpt from the transcript.

Olbermann: And lastly tonight, a Special Comment, about — lying. While the leadership in Congress has self-destructed over the revelations of an unmatched, and unrelieved, march through a cesspool… While the leadership inside the White House has self-destructed over the revelations of a book with a glowing red cover…

The President of the United States — unbowed, undeterred, and unconnected to reality — has continued his extraordinary trek through our country rooting out the enemies of freedom: The Democrats.

Transcripts below the fold


Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona Congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, "177 of the opposition party said 'You know, we don't think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists."

The hell they did.

177 Democrats opposed the President's seizure of another part of the Constitution*.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn't be listening to the conversations of terrorists.

President Bush hears… what he wants.

Tuesday, at another fundraiser in California, he had said "Democrats take a law enforcement approach to terrorism. That means America will wait until we're attacked again before we respond."

Mr. Bush fabricated that, too.

And evidently he has begun to fancy himself as a mind-reader.

"If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party," the President said at another fundraiser Monday in Nevada, "it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is — wait until we're attacked again."

The President doesn't just hear what he wants. He hears things, that only he can hear.

It defies belief that this President and his administration could continue to find new unexplored political gutters into which they could wallow.

Olbermann rocks!

 

[BobG]

Has everyone seen Olbermanns commentary on Bush's latest string of lies?

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/...e-inaction-in-the-face-of-the-enemy-you-fear/

I recommend watching it.

Here is an excerpt from the transcript.


Olbermann rocks!

I hate to say it, since I like Olbermann's wit, but he's become the Bill O'Reilly of the left. Or maybe not (hate saying it), because I enjoy watching O'Reilly once in a while, too.

I think he may be playing the "Good night and good luck" thing a bit too much, as well. He's entertaining, but he might be overestimating his stature just a bit to pretend he's Edward Murrow.

 

[Astronuc]

Olberman is certainly not Edward R. Murrow nor Walter Cronkite - I don't think any journalist these days rises to that level. Nevertheless, Oblerman's piced is compelling, and he captures the essence of Bush and his fellow cohorts.

I think the quotes of Tommy Franks paint an accurate picture:

And amid his quaint defenses of the-then nagging absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, or the continuing freedom of Osama Bin Laden, General Franks said some of the most profound words of this generation.

He spoke of "the worst thing that can happen" to this country:

First, quoting, a "massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western World — it may be in the United States of America."

Then, the general continued, "the western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years, in this grand experiment that we call democracy."

It was this super-patriotic warrior's fear that we would lose that most cherished liberty, because of another attack, one — again quoting General Franks — "that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution."

It is amazing (and at times unbelieveable) that the US is under the leadership of such a person as Bush. Hopefully, this will never happen again.

 

[edward]

I have always looked at Franks as another one of the people that Bush put in a position that was above their level of competence.

Tommy Franks and Laura Bush were high school classmates. Kinda makes me wonder...

 

[russ_watters]

That Oberman piece is pretty funny: you are what you eat.

edit: just to make sure everybody knows what I'm talking about...

Oberman is equating lying with political rhetoric-slinging while he, himself is doing the same thing: take a quote and make an exaggerated interpretation of it. For example.

Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders; Democrats; the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies — of treason.

Yes, I would agree that he's in the category of a Bill O'Reilly - or even a Rush Limbaugh.

 

[Gokul43201]

Yes, I would agree that he's in the category of a Bill O'Reilly - or even a Rush Limbaugh.

...with the possible exception that every other sentence in Olbermann's show is not an outright fabrication?

 

[Skyhunter]

I hate to say it, since I like Olbermann's wit, but he's become the Bill O'Reilly of the left. Or maybe not (hate saying it), because I enjoy watching O'Reilly once in a while, too.

I think he may be playing the "Good night and good luck" thing a bit too much, as well. He's entertaining, but he might be overestimating his stature just a bit to pretend he's Edward Murrow.

I find very little similarities between the two. Olbermann is far more eloquent than O'Rielly, and I have yet to hear Olbermann make false claims.

That said I agree that Olbermann is saying the things that the left wants to hear.

 

[Skyhunter]

That Oberman piece is pretty funny: you are what you eat.

edit: just to make sure everybody knows what I'm talking about...

Obermann is equating lying with political rhetoric-slinging while he, himself is doing the same thing: take a quote and make an exaggerated interpretation of it. For example.

Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders; Democrats; the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies — of treason.

Yes, I would agree that he's in the category of a Bill O'Reilly - or even a Rush Limbaugh.

Olbermann, O'reilly, and Limbaugh are entertainers. Bush is supposedly the President of the United States of America. Comparing his statements to those of Olbermann presses home the point that Olbermann is making.

Since when did statements made by entertainers with a political perspective carry the same weight as that of the President?

 

[BobG]

Funny article about a Bush fund raising event: GOP Donors' Personal Data Disclosed in RNC Privacy Slip

Because of security concerns, people planning to attend had to provide personal info to the Secret Service. The list of guests, their social security numbers, and their race were e-mailed out to inadvertent addressees.

The two people whose race was listed as Muslim seemed particularly irate.

The event was for members of Team 100 and Republican Regents, two groups of top donators to Bush and the Republican Party. It's not really good politics to piss off your top donors.

 

[ptabor]

...with the possible exception that every other sentence in Olbermann's show is not an outright fabrication?

What have O'Reilly or Limbaugh stated that is a complete fabrication?

Just curious, not trying to be confrontational.

Limbaugh, at times, says things that are so outrageous one simply has to laugh.

 

[edward]

What have O'Reilly or Limbaugh stated that is a complete fabrication?

Just curious, not trying to be confrontational.

Limbaugh, at times, says things that are so outrageous one simply has to laugh.

Here is a typical example of O'rielly's total spin zone. He hears of something or has a bit of evidence of something and then he plays the game TWISTER with the facts.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4259977232864520397&q=Bill+O%27Reilly&hl=en

[MEDIA=youtube]RbX-2X7_h-M[/MEDIA][/URL]

 

[Skyhunter]

Here is a typical example of O'rielly's total spin zone. He hears of something or has a bit of evidence of something and then he plays the game TWISTER with the facts.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4259977232864520397&q=Bill+O%27Reilly&hl=en

[MEDIA=youtube]RbX-2X7_h-M[/MEDIA][/URL][/QUOTE]
:smile: :smile: :smile:

If you think that is bad, listen to his radio show. He is not nearly as restrained as he is in his TV appearances.

 

[Skyhunter]

What have O'Reilly or Limbaugh stated that is a complete fabrication?

Is it complete fabrication, or just a perverse twisting of the facts?

You decide. Here is a compilation of Limbaugh's statements during Katrina.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200509120008

Here is a good op-ed by Molly Ivans in 1995 that really nails Rush, and his style.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/1995/05/ivins.html

Rush Limbaugh is a pathetic excuse for a man.

 

[phoenixy]

Not to mention the drug and prostitute scandal conducted by the moral preaching ... oh wait

 

[edward]

A new book just out, Tempting Faith, Written by David Kuo claims that the Faith Based Initiative was all politics and no substance. There are a number of clips on "You Tube" from the Olberman program. A series of videos about the book unveils how the religious right was used for political advantage.

[MEDIA=youtube]72noFmMjkrc[/MEDIA][/URL]

[PLAIN][MEDIA=youtube]_sOlZNa8Ka8[/MEDIA][/URL]

Kuo was also on CBS 60 minutes on Sunday evening.