My belated Kerry endorsement!

[kburiss001]

For those of you out there that may not be quite decided to cast your vote for Kerry, let me give my endorsement. As the most adored Democratic figure today is the most prolific liar to ever occupy the Oval Orifice, I will begin with the 10 biggest lies told by the Kerry campaign.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

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1. Lie: Bush pulled troops away from Afghanistan to fight in Iraq.<o></o>

Truth: When Iraq was invaded there were approximately 9,000 American troops in Afghanistan and there are approximately 16,000 today. According to General Tommy Franks, who was the commander of both fronts, this claim is absolutely false.<o></o>

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2. Lie: Bush said that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.<o></o>

Truth: At no point has Bush ever claimed that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. Please find me a quote and a source.<o></o>

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3. Lie: Bush said Saddam was an imminent threat.<o></o>

Truth: Bush actually stated that Saddam was not an imminent threat in his 2003 State of the Union address and that we could not wait for him to become one. Here is what he said, "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."<o></o>

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4. Lie: Saddam had no links to terrorism.<o></o>

Truth: In fact, there are about 30 pages in the 9/11 Commission Report detailing the connection between Saddam and terrorists, even Al-Qaeda, that goes back over a decade. What it says is there is no credible evidence of a connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam with respect to 9/11. Unfortunately, most media outlets cut off the end of the sentence, "with respect to 9/11" as they are cool-aid drinkers for the Democratic Party.<o></o>

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5. Lie: Bush will bring back the draft if reelected.<o></o>

Truth: First, Bush could not reinstate the draft via executive order. It would require a bill from the Congress that would never happen. Second, only 2 Congressmen have introduced bills to reinstated the draft: Charles Rangel(D-New York) in the House and Fritz Hollings(D-South Carolina) in the Senate.<o></o>

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6. Lie: The mainstream media is not biased to the left.<o></o>

Truth: Memogate and then after memogate Rather headlines the news with the bogus draft story. In addition, numerous polls have produced results showing 80 to 90+ percent of the media are Democrats. <o></o>

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7. Lie: The Bush family exerted political pressure on Ben Barnes to get Bush into Texas Air National Guard(TANG.)<o></o>

Truth: In 1999, Ben Barnes testified under oath in an affidavit to the exact opposite. That is, no pressure was placed on him. In 2004, Ben Barnes claimed that he was pressured to get Bush in TANG while Barnes was Lt Governor of Texas. The problem is Bush was accepted into TANG in May 1968 and Barnes became Lt Governor in January 1969. He quickly changed his story to say that it happened when he was Texas Speaker of the House in 1968. He later resigned in disgrace because of a fraud scandal. His own daughter went public to say he was lying and it was revealed that he was the leading fundraiser for Kerry in Texas. That bastion of fairness, Dan Rather, then interviewed him without mentioning any of these facts.<o></o>

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8. Lie: Bush stole the 2000 election.<o></o>

Truth: At least 2 extensive studies were commissioned by most of the major media outlets to perform the recount that was stopped by the Supreme Court. Both concluded that Bush would have won even if the recount had been allowed. And who challenged the election in court in the first place: Gore. Once the Florida Supreme Court decided to rewrite Florida election law after the election, the Federal Supreme Court had to step in and put a stop to it. It sounds to me like possibly Gore was trying to steal the election.<o></o>

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9. Lie: Republicans disenfranchised black voters in Florida in 2000.<o></o>

Truth: Black voters represented a higher percentage of the Florida vote in 2000 than in any other previous election. Blacks made up 11% of registered voters and cast 17% of all ballots. The USCCR, chaired by a severely partisan Democrat Mary Frances Berry, could not find any evidence of voter disenfranchisement after searching for 6 months after the election.<o></o>

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10. Lie: Bush lied about Saddam trying to purchase "yellow cake" from Africa.<o></o>

Truth: Here is the quote from Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." It is true that the British intelligence reported this fact. The Brits never backed off of it. Since then the Butler Commission report in the UK and the 9/11 report here in the US have both confirmed that this was good intelligence. Even if it had not been confirmed, Bush was telling us what British intelligence was reporting and thus was not lying.<o></o>

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Next, I will chronicle the history of the 'foreign policy geniuses' of the left.<o></o>

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1. In 1938, Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England, signed the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. For years Hitler had been violating the Treaty of Versailles by building up his military and had entered and occupied the Sudetenland portion of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain essentially gave up Czechoslovakia and allowed Hitler to keep his newly fortified military for a promise from a despotic madman that he would not attack Western Europe. Chamberlain stepped off the plane and held up the treaty exclaiming that England would have "peace in or time." Within a year Panzers were rolling through Warsaw and Paris and London was being bombed. Appeasers 0, Madmen 1.<o></o>

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2. After WWII the French unlike most of the rest of Europe refused to relinquish control of its colonies. They were subsequently run out of Algeria and other African colonies and Indochina. A Marxist revolutionary, Ho Chi Minh, seized upon the French occupation. It was cast by Ho Chi Minh as a fight for freedom and the French of course turned tail and ran. The Marxists of North Vietnam then invaded South Vietnam and the U.S. was left to protect the South from the North's incursion. Kerry, after returning home and testifying under oath to the Senate about supposed war crimes committed by U.S. troops, secretly met twice with the VietCong in of all places Paris. Kerry even compared Ho Chi Minh to George Washington as a freedom fighter for the North. He now is honored in the Hanoi War Museum as a critical ally in the North's eventual victory not on the battlefield but on the political landscape of the U.S. According to the "foreign policy geniuses" of the left, the North Vietnamese only wanted to institute a free democracy. The U.S. pulled its troops out and the North Vietnamese Marxists promptly slaughtered approximately 2 million Cambodians and South Vietnamese. Millions more were forced into re-education camps. Some South Vietnamese mothers were looking so forward to the new freedom that would be bestowed upon them by the North that they committed suicide outside of American helicopters as they were departing in an attempt to orphan their children so that the Americans would take them with them. Appeasers 0, Madmen 2.<o></o>

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3. In 1980, during the Reagan/Carter presidential elections were happening the 'foreign policy geniuses' of the left predicted nuclear war if Reagan were elected. They also trotted out the 'Reagan will institute a draft' lie that has been recycled this year. Kerry and the left whined about how we were making the Soviets angry and advocated that we continue to disarm unilaterally. We had signed several non-proliferation treaties with the Soviets and the had unilaterally adhered to them as the Soviet Union continued to build up its military in defiance of these treaties. Having learned so much from Chamberlain the 'foreign policy geniuses'" solution was to sign more pieces of paper. So the 'foreign policy geniuses' do believe in unilateralism when it ensures the weakening of America. Appeasers 0, Madmen 3.<o></o>

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4. When the Soviet Union deployed SS-20 missiles in Eastern Europe and targeted Western European capitals, Reagan responded by deploying Pershing II missiles in Western Europe as a deterrent. The foreign policy geniuses of the left in America and Europe took to the streets in protest as they were certain that Reagan was provoking the Soviet Union and would start WWIII. Luckily, Reagan ignored them. Reagan called the Soviet Union the 'evil empire' and the left decried the incivility and once again discussed how he was provoking them. In 1986, Reagan asked Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall and the left denounced Reagan as a bully and a cowboy. Does that sound familiar? If the Soviet Union was not an 'evil empire', was the Berlin Wall erected to keep people from fleeing into East Berlin? Was the Berlin Wall the backside of an outfield wall of a baseball field in East Berlin? The left also ridiculed Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative as 'Star Wars'. The 'foreign policy geniuses' said it was a waste of money. And when Reagan walked out of the summit talks in Reykjavik, it was because he refused to kill SDI and Gorbachev insisted that it happen as he knew that the program would render the Soviet's offensive weapons useless. The 'foreign policy geniuses' once again predicted WWII and blamed it on Reagan. Within 3 months Gorbachev was insisting that they return to the negotiating table. Fortunately, Reagan ignored the 'foreign policy geniuses' every step up the way and the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. Cowboys 1, Madmen 0.<o></o>

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5. In Somalia after our troops took casualties, Bill Clinton, 'foreign policy genius', turned tail and ran. Osama subsequently pointed to this retreat as evidence of America's cowardice and it led to an escalation of terrorism in the 1990’s, which culminate in 9/11. Appeasers 0, Madmen 4.<o></o>

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6. In the 1990's with the assistance of the world's greatest living 'foreign policy genius', Jimmy Carter, the Clinton Administration attempted to appease and bribe the North Koreans by providing them with oil, cash, and cold water nuclear reactors in return for promising to halt their nuclear weapons program. The North Koreans of course took the goodies and continued their nuclear weapons program. Having learned so much from the world's greatest living 'foreign policy genius', Kerry is advocating the same approach with Iran. Appeasers 0, Madmen 5.<o></o>

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I could go on, but I think you get the picture. If you do not, then you are dumb enough to have already voted for Kerry. Possibly multiple times. <o></o>

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Next, let's list the dictators that 'foreign policy geniuses' have coddled and defended over the years.<o></o>

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1. Stalin<o></o>

2. Every subsequent Soviet dictator<o></o>

3. Mao<o></o>

4. Pol Pot<o></o>

5. Ho Chi Minh<o></o>

6. Castro (and his henchman, Che, is a personal hero of many on the left)<o></o>

7. Allende<o></o>

8. Kim Jong Il<o></o>

9. Kim Il Sung<o></o>

10. Ortega<o></o>

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The only dictator that has ever been condemned by the left is Pinochet. Of course, his crime was not murder as the aforementioned dictators murdered between 70 and 100 million people in the last century. His crime was to seek counsel from the horrendous 'Chicago Five' free marketers for economic policies after his coup overthrowing Allende. Many of these reforms were implemented and Chile went from economic ruin to having the highest standard of living in South America today. Of course the standard of living discrepancy would be even greater if leftists had not regained some control in the 1980's and reversed many of these policies. Therefore, his heinous crime was not murder but not being a Marxist.<o></o>

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Lastly, let's go through the all-important international and domestic endorsements (direct and indirect) received by Kerry.<o></o>

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1. Communist North Korea<o></o>

2. Iran<o></o>

3. Communist Vietnam<o></o>

4. The PLO<o></o>

5. Malaysia<o></o>

6. Newly Socialist Spain<o></o>

7. France the bribed<o></o>

8. Germany the bribed<o></o>

9. The Communist Party USA - http://www.cpusa.org/<o></o>

10. Last but not least, Osama bin Laden<o></o>

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To summarize, current events are nothing more than recycled history. Appeasement, giving weight to international opinion, and worrying about angering our enemies has never worked, but the 'foreign policy geniuses' wish to follow that path again. I hear how we are angering the Middle East and creating more terrorists. Would Abu Musab al-Zarqawi return to his job as the cashier at the local feed and seed if we left Iraq? If they hate us now because of Iraq, what was their opinion before we went in to Iraq? Was 9/11 an act of love? Were the Palestinians that were dancing in the streets on 9/11 dancing in solidarity with Americans? Since negotiating with fanatics and madmen has never worked to deter them before, why would it work this time? Just remember that a vote for Kerry is a vote for the terrorists. Just ask OBL.

 

[lander]

Let's hope the new year will bring better posters. A ghost copy and paste of a mostly false set of rubbish -- what a symbolic ending to a **** year in American history.

 

[docmercer--banned]

President Bush told a crowd of supporters in Houston that, back in 1995, two years after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Sen. John Kerry introduced legislation to cut the intelligence budget by $1.5 billion. "Once again, Sen. Kerry is trying to have it both ways," the president said. "He's for good intelligence; yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services. And that is no way to lead a nation in a time of war." Bush further charged that Kerry's bill was "so deeply irresponsible that he didn't have a single-co-sponsor in the United States Senate."Bush and his operatives made a practice of mischaracterizing the voting record of the presumptive Democratic nominee.:

One thing is true: Kerry did introduce a bill on Sept. 29, 1995—S. 1290—that, among many other things, would have cut the intelligence budget by $300 million per year over a five-year period, or $1.5 billion in all. But let's look at that bill more closely:

First, would such a reduction have "gutted" the intelligence services? Intelligence budgets are classified, but private budget sleuths have estimated that the 1995 budget totaled about $28 billion. Thus, taking out $300 million would have meant a reduction of about 1 percent. This is not a gutting.

Second, and more to the point, Kerry's proposal would have not have cut a single intelligence program.

On the same day that Kerry's bill was read on the Senate floor, two of his colleagues—Democrat Bob Kerrey and Republican Arlen Specter—introduced a similar measure. Their bill would have cut the budget of the National Reconnaissance Office, the division of the U.S. intelligence community in charge of spy satellites.

According to that day's Congressional Record, Specter said he was offering an amendment "to address concerns about financial practices and management" at the NRO. Specifically, "the NRO has accumulated more than $1 billion in unspent funds without informing the Pentagon, CIA, or Congress." He called this accumulation "one more example of how intelligence agencies sometimes use their secret status to avoid accountability."

The Kerrey-Specter bill proposed to cut the NRO's budget "to reflect the availability of funds … that have accumulated in the carry-forward accounts" from previous years. Another co-sponsor of the bill, Sen. Richard Bryan, D–Nev., noted that these "carry-forward accounts" amounted to "more than $1.5 billion."

This was the same $1.5 billion that John Kerry was proposing to cut—over a five-year period—in his bill. It had nothing to do with intelligence, terrorism, or anything of substance. It was a motion to rescind money that had been handed out but never spent.

In other words, it's as if Kerry had once filed for a personal tax refund—and Bush accused him of raiding the Treasury.

By the way, the Kerrey-Specter bill—which called for the same intelligence cut that George W. Bush is attacking John Kerry for proposing—passed on the Senate floor by a voice vote. It was sheer common sense. It also led to major investigations into the NRO's finances, both by the White House and by the CIA's general counsel.

John Kerry's bill died—its title was read on the floor, then it was sent to the Senate Budget Committee—but, again, not because it was an abhorrence. It died for two reasons. First, some of its provisions, including the intelligence cut, were covered in other bills. Second, Kerry's bill was not just about the intelligence budget; it was a 16-page document, titled "The Responsible Deficit Reduction Act of 1995," that called for a scattershot of specific cuts across the entire federal budget. (The New York Times today, reporting on Bush's attack, states that Kerry's bill "also proposed cuts in military spending." The story neglects to mention that it proposed just as many cuts in non-military spending.)

Through the early-to-mid-'90s, Congress was rife with bills and amendments to reduce the deficit and balance the budget. Most of them were tabled to committees, then hung out to dry. Kerry's was one of them—not because it was unpatriotic but because it was redundant.

 

[docmercer--banned]

[font=Arial, Helvetica]More Reflection back on the Bush Campaigns lies:
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[font=Arial, Helvetica]"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" is a group formed March 23 after Kerry wrapped up the Democratic nomination. It held a news conference May 4 denigrating Kerry's military record and his later anti-war pronouncements during the 1970's. The group began running an attack ad Aug. 5 in which 13 veterans variously say Kerry is "not being honest" and "is lying about his record."[/font]

Where the Money Comes From
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[font=Arial, Helvetica]Although the word "Republican" does not appear in the ad, the group's financing is highly partisan. The source of the Swift Boat group's money wasn't known when it first surfaced, but a report filed July 15 with the Internal Revenue Services now shows its initial funding came mainly from a Houston home builder, Bob R. Perry, who has also given millions to the Republican party and Republican candidates, mostly in Texas, including President Bush and Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose district is near Houston[/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica]Perry gave $100,000 of the $158,750 received by the Swift Boat group through the end of June, according to its disclosure report .[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica]Perry and his wife Doylene also gave more than $3 million to Texas Republicans during the 2002 elections, according to a database maintained by the Institute on Money in State Politics . The Perrys also were among the largest Republican donors in neighboring Louisiana, where they gave $200,000, and New Mexico, where they gave $183,000, according to the database [/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica]At the federal level the Perrys have given $359,825 since 1999, including $6,000 to Bush's campaigns and $27,325 to DeLay and his political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, according to a database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics .[/font]

[font=Arial, Helvetica]Sen. John McCain -- who has publicly endorsed Bush and even appealed for donations to the President's campaign -- came to Kerry's defense on this. McCain didn't witness the events in question, of course. But he told the Associated Press in an August 5 interview:[/font]

[font=Times New Roman, Times]McCain : I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crewmates have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam.[/font]

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[docmercer--banned]

When Bush brought up Saddam's ties with terrorism, I found it to be irrelevant. Saudi Arabia for example is the number one sponsor of terrorism in the region. The Saudi government raised more money than any other country in the world for the families of suicide bombers affiliated with Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Also, the government of Saudi Arabia helped single Saudi Arabian parents abduct their children that lived a peacefully free life with their American parent. Therefore doesn't Saudi Arabia cause an imminent threat to the United States with their support of terror? So using the Bush doctrine, we should invade Saudi Arabia, right? Of course not. Bush would never do Bush would never do that. George W would hate to mess up his family's oil ties with Saudi Arabia

What would happen when we went into Iraq and defeated Saddam Hussein? Who would replace him? Don't we have an exit strategy? Bush's answer to that idea was, "The situation could hardly get worse than it is today, if we change the regime." Well it looks like someone didn't study the cultural divide in Iraq. Most likely, a civil war could break out involving Shiite Muslims, Kurds, and Sunni Muslims, thus affecting the entire region, mainly Turkey, who is strongly opposed to the formation of an independent "Kurdistan."

 

[docmercer--banned]

3. Lie: Bush said Saddam was an imminent threat.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

Truth: Bush actually stated that Saddam was not an imminent threat in his 2003 State of the Union address and that we could not wait for him to become one. Here is what he said, "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."
Very interesting -- “Absolutely.” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,” 5/7/03

 

[docmercer--banned]

6. In the 1990's with the assistance of the world's greatest living 'foreign policy genius', Jimmy Carter, the Clinton Administration attempted to appease and bribe the North Koreans by providing them with oil, cash, and cold water nuclear reactors in return for promising to halt their nuclear weapons program. The North Koreans of course took the goodies and continued their nuclear weapons program. Having learned so much from the world's greatest living 'foreign policy genius', Kerry is advocating the same approach with Iran. Appeasers 0, Madmen 5.

George W. Bush’s choice of Donald Rumsfeld to be U.S. defense secretary could put an unintended spotlight on the role of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon – a Bush family benefactor – in funneling millions of dollars to communist North Korea in the 1990s as it was developing a missile and nuclear weapons program.
In 1998, Rumsfeld headed a special commission, appointed by the Republican-controlled Congress, that warned that North Korea had made substantial progress during the decade in building missiles that could pose a potential nuclear threat to Japan and parts of the United States. Rumsfeld’s alarming assessment of North Korea’s war-making capabilities now is being cited by Republicans as a justification for investing billions of taxpayer dollars in an anti-missile defense system favored by Bush and Rumsfeld.

During the early-to-mid 1990s, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was monitoring a series of clandestine payments from Sun Myung Moon's organization to the North Korean communist leaders who were overseeing the country's military strategies. According to DIA documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Moon’s payments to North Korean leaders included a $3 million “birthday present” to current communist leader Kim Jong Il and offshore payments amounting to “several tens of million dollars” to the previous communist dictator, Kim Il Sung.

The alleged payments – and broader Moon-North Korean business deals reported by the DIA – came at a time of a strict U.S. government ban on financial transactions between North Korea and any U.S. person or entity, to keep hard currency out of North Korea's hands. While negotiating those business deals with North Korea in the 1990s, Moon’s organization also hired former President George H.W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush to give speeches at Moon-sponsored events.

During one speech inaugurating a new Moon-sponsored newspaper in Argentina in November 1996, former President Bush declared, “I want to salute Reverend Moon,” whom Bush praised as “the man with the vision.” The father of the incoming U.S. president has refused to divulge how much Moon’s organization paid for these speeches which were delivered in the United States, Asia and South America.

Some press estimates have put the fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, though one former leader of Moon’s Unification Church told me that the organization had earmarked $10 million for the former president.

In 1999, a House Republican task force followed up the work of Rumsfeld's commission and declared that North Korea and its missile program had emerged as a nuclear threat to Japan and possibly the Pacific Northwest of the United States. "This threat has advanced considerably over the past five years, particularly with the enhancement of North Korea's missile capabilities," said the Republican task force. "Unlike five years ago, North Korea can now strike the United States with a missile that could deliver high explosive, chemical, biological, or possibly nuclear weapons."

Ironically, Moon's newspaper joined in laying the blame for North Korea's progress at the feet of the Clinton-Gore administration. "To its list of missed opportunities, the Clinton-Gore administration can now add the abdication of responsibility for national security," a Washington Times editorial stated on Sept. 5, 2000.

Not surprisingly the Times did not mention that its founder and financial backer, Sun Myung Moon, had lent a hand to North Korea by agreeing to multi-million-dollar business deals and allegedly putting millions of dollars in the personal accounts of the leaders masterminding the strategic weapons development. Equally unsurprising, former President George H.W. Bush and his about-to-be-president son have never explained the family's financial involvement with Rev. Moon, a messianic leader who has vowed to build a movement powerful enough to eliminate all individuality and freedom in the United States.

 

[docmercer--banned]

In Somalia after our troops took casualties, Bill Clinton, 'foreign policy genius', turned tail and ran. Osama subsequently pointed to this retreat as evidence of America's cowardice and it led to an escalation of terrorism in the 1990’s, which culminate in 9/11. Appeasers 0, Madmen 4.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

* Les Aspin resigned as Sect of Defv .... Rumsfeld botches up Iraq from start to finish and is not man enough like Aspin to accept responsibility for his failures

 

[kburiss001]

Ghost copy and paste?

Let's hope the new year will bring better posters. A ghost copy and paste of a mostly false set of rubbish -- what a symbolic ending to a **** year in American history.

FIrst of all, it is a copy and paste only because I wrote it a few months ago. Second, what is false? Please be specific. If you cannot refute it, then just keep your mouth shut.

 

[kburiss001]

In Somalia after our troops took casualties, Bill Clinton, 'foreign policy genius', turned tail and ran. Osama subsequently pointed to this retreat as evidence of America's cowardice and it led to an escalation of terrorism in the 1990’s, which culminate in 9/11. Appeasers 0, Madmen 4.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

* Les Aspin resigned as Sect of Defv .... Rumsfeld botches up Iraq from start to finish and is not man enough like Aspin to accept responsibility for his failures

He hasn't turned tail and run as you would advocate. Thus he has not proven OBL correct. My point is appeasement does not work.

 

[kburiss001]

When Bush brought up Saddam's ties with terrorism, I found it to be irrelevant. Saudi Arabia for example is the number one sponsor of terrorism in the region. The Saudi government raised more money than any other country in the world for the families of suicide bombers affiliated with Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Also, the government of Saudi Arabia helped single Saudi Arabian parents abduct their children that lived a peacefully free life with their American parent. Therefore doesn't Saudi Arabia cause an imminent threat to the United States with their support of terror? So using the Bush doctrine, we should invade Saudi Arabia, right? Of course not. Bush would never do Bush would never do that. George W would hate to mess up his family's oil ties with Saudi Arabia

What would happen when we went into Iraq and defeated Saddam Hussein? Who would replace him? Don't we have an exit strategy? Bush's answer to that idea was, "The situation could hardly get worse than it is today, if we change the regime." Well it looks like someone didn't study the cultural divide in Iraq. Most likely, a civil war could break out involving Shiite Muslims, Kurds, and Sunni Muslims, thus affecting the entire region, mainly Turkey, who is strongly opposed to the formation of an independent "Kurdistan."

Saudi Arabia did not violate 17 UN resolutions. Also, there are more countries than just Iraq and Saudi Arabia that supported terrorism. Iraq was just the next logical step iafter Afghanistan to perpetuate a change in the region from a collection of tyrannical human rights abusing dictatorships to free democracies. The logical next step is free elections in Iraq just as in Afghanistan. Also, that civil war will most certainly occur if you get your way and have us begin a cowardly retreat.

 

[docmercer--banned]

Lie: The mainstream media is not biased to the left.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>

Truth: Memogate and then after memogate Rather headlines the news with the bogus draft story. In addition, numerous polls have produced results showing 80 to 90+ percent of the media are Democrats.

Fox News Channel is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a right-wing Australian who already owns a significant portion of the world's media. His network has close ties to the Republican Party, and among his "fair and balanced" commentators is Newt Gingrich .... NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the largest corporations in the world - and one with a long history of anti-union activity. GE, a major contributor to the Republican Party ...
If television largely ignores the reality of life for the majority of Americans, corporate radio is just plain overt in its right-wing bias. In a nation that cast a few million more votes for Al Gore and Ralph Nader than for George Bush and Pat Buchanan, there are dozens of right-wing talk show programs. Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Bob Grant, Sean Hannity, Alan Keyes, Armstrong Williams, Howie Carr, Oliver North, Michael Savage, Michael Reagan, Pat Robertson, Laura Schlessinger - these are only a few of the voices that day after day pound a rightwing drumbeat into the heartland of this country. And from a left perspective there is - well, no one. The Republican Party, corporate owners and advertisers have their point of view well represented on radio. Unfortunately, the rest of America has almost nothing.



There is an intimate link between the media, the war, and the Bush administration that many activists are even unaware of. Few administrations in history have been as adept at using polling, focus groups, "perception managers," spinners, and I.O. or "information operations" specialists to sell slogans to further a "patriotically correct" climate. Orchestrating media coverage is one of their most well-honed skills, aided and abetted by professional PR firms, corporate consultants, and media outlets. The Republican Guard relies on Murdoch-owned media assets like the Fox News Channel, supportive newspapers, aggressive talk radio hosts, conservative columnists, and an arsenal of on-air pundits adept at polarizing opinion and devaluing independent journalism. They benefit from a media environment shaped by a wave of media consolidation that has led to the number of companies controlling our media drop from fifty to between five and seven in just ten years. Then there is the merger of news biz and show biz. Entertainment-oriented reality shows help depoliticize viewers while sensation-driven cable news limits analytical journalism and in-depth issue-oriented coverage.

Is it any wonder that most Americans admit to being uninformed about many of the key issues we confront? Is it surprising that many blindly follow feel-good slogans or appeals to national unity and conformity? This media problem is at the heart of all the issues that we face. And it is getting worse not better. We live in a climate where even journalists are being intimidated for stepping out of line. In Iraq, the hotel assigned to journalists was fired on by soldiers, who killed two media workers. In the U.S., Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh was baited as a "media terrorist" by Pentagon advisor Richard Perle. Hundreds of journalists were "embedded" to sanitize war coverage. Independent journalists were harassed or ignored. Antiwar commercials have been suppressed and censored, while conservative talking-heads outnumber all others by several hundred percent.

MSNBC's Ashleigh Banfield spoke at a college about the coverage of the Iraq war. She was honest and critical. "There were horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism? Or was this coverage?" she asked. "As a journalist, I have been ostracized just from going on television and saying, 'Here's what the leaders of Hizbollah, a radical Moslem group, are telling me about what is needed to bring peace to Israel,'" she said. "And, 'Here's what the Lebanese are saying.' Like it or lump it, don't shoot the messenger, but that's what they do." The "they" undoubtedly were her bosses at the GE- and Microsoft-owned channel, the same men who fired top-rated talk show host Phil Donahue and then used the war to try and out -fox Fox's jingoism with promos proclaiming "God Bless America."

They quickly sought to silence Banfield. "NBC News president Neal Shapiro has taken correspondent Ashleigh Banfield to the woodshed for a speech in which she criticized the networks for portraying the Iraqi war as 'glorious and wonderful,'" reported the Hollywood Reporter. An official NBC spokesperson later told the press, "She and we both agreed that she didn't intend to demean the work of her colleagues, and she will choose her words more carefully in the future."

It was the kind of patronizing statement you would expect in the Pravda or Baghdad's old Ministry of misinformation. In Saddam's Iraq, she would have been done for. Limbaugh called on her to move to Al Jazeera. Michael Savage, the new rightwing host on MSNBC who replaced Donahue, has branded his own colleague a "slut" Š on the air!

There are other questions that need asking. What is the connection between the war and pro-Bush coverage we have been seeing and the upcoming June 2 FCC decision that is expected to relax broadcast regulations. Is it unthinkable to suggest that big media companies who stand to make windfall profits once Colin Powell's son, FCC chief Michael Powell, engineers rules that permit more media mergers and concentration. Would they want to appease and please an administration that frequently bullies its opponents?

 

[kburiss001]

Not surprisingly the Times did not mention that its founder and financial backer, Sun Myung Moon, had lent a hand to North Korea by agreeing to multi-million-dollar business deals and allegedly putting millions of dollars in the personal accounts of the leaders masterminding the strategic weapons development. Equally unsurprising, former President George H.W. Bush and his about-to-be-president son have never explained the family's financial involvement with Rev. Moon, a messianic leader who has vowed to build a movement powerful enough to eliminate all individuality and freedom in the United States.

Not surprisingly, you revert to conspiracy theories. The last time I saw the Rev. Moon he was be lauded by a group of moronic Democratic Congressmen in Washington.

 

[kburiss001]

Of course - talk radio and FoxNews

If television largely ignores the reality of life for the majority of Americans, corporate radio is just plain overt in its right-wing bias. In a nation that cast a few million more votes for Al Gore and Ralph Nader than for George Bush and Pat Buchanan, there are dozens of right-wing talk show programs. Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Bob Grant, Sean Hannity, Alan Keyes, Armstrong Williams, Howie Carr, Oliver North, Michael Savage, Michael Reagan, Pat Robertson, Laura Schlessinger - these are only a few of the voices that day after day pound a rightwing drumbeat into the heartland of this country. And from a left perspective there is - well, no one. The Republican Party, corporate owners and advertisers have their point of view well represented on radio. Unfortunately, the rest of America has almost nothing.

There is no doubt talk radio is conservative. The difference is talk radio does not feign impartiality. Talk radio admits it. NPR, however, tries to act impartial when it is overtly leftist. I would agree FoxNews leans right, but I am sure most of your gripes are about shows that announce their political biases up front. ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN do not.

 

[GAMEFACE]

kburiss,

you're correct, 100% correct. welcome aboard.

 

[kburiss001]

Very interesting -- “Absolutely.” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,” 5/7/03

I'll take Bush's word in his State of the Union speech over Ari's answer during a news conference. And where did you get this quote because I would love to see the entire context and the source.

 

[kburiss001]

Thanks gameface

kburiss,

you're correct, 100% correct. welcome aboard.

I appraciate it. I just got tired of reading the the drivel from doc and the others. My guess is doc is a professor at university of texas. Only an academic could be that arrogantly ignorant.

 

[Cujo]

If anything he is a student at UT as he sounds fairly young.

 

[bblight]

kburiss - an excellent series of posts, first stating the true facts and then refuting Lander, one of our Marxists and also a (French) flag waving Frenchman.

Then putting the lie to the posts of Herr OberFuhrer Doc Mullah - our terrorsist-in-waiting and resident brown shirt will earn you two gold stars.

Most of our left wing posters are in here for a good debate - trade opinions and maybe a few insults and ironies; but be careful with Herr Oberfuhrer Doc Mullah - that guy radiates hate like blast furnace. He's a true Gestapo type!

Please post more - it was a good read!

By the way, I think the Doc might be a janitor at UT - he just doesn't have the intellect to be a professor.

 

[docmercer--banned]

Kburris:

Great commentary:

"difference is talk radio does not feign impartiality" ...

Thats funny!! Hannity & Limbaugh ring a bell ???