I love it when someone calls a lie what it is: a lie.
Maddow: What's going on here is a deliberate attempt on the part of Republicans to define nuclear down -- to conflate these two totally separate things to demonize the way that Democrats have to pass health reform right now. By calling it the nuclear option even though the nuclear option is a real thing in the Senate, and this isn't that -- it has nothing to do with that. Perhaps the reason that Republicans are so unwilling to call this what it is, reconciliation is because they have a really long record of using reconciliation.
John McCain is, and I will say it in print if others are too damned polite to do so, a LIAR. And his campaign is replete with lies.
It took years for the American public to wake up to the fact that Bush lied to them repeatedly, and still does. How much time do we have to wake up to McCain?
UPDATE: If it won't play for you, here is the link. --the BB
Promise / Lie: What's the difference? Dengre, that pit bull of investigating intricate corruption scandals, reminds us (in great detail) that former House aide John Albaugh is cooperating in the ongoing investigations related to Jack Abramoff and his clients and politicians.
Senator John McCain has a role in this. Dengre writes:
During a November 17, 2004 Hearing on the scandal, John McCain made a promise:
"I pledge, as a member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, that we will not stop until the complete truth is told."
It was a promise—like all John McCain promises—that McCain quickly broke.
[Emphasis in the original]
Coments near the end of dengre's post:
And yet, McCain now points to his investigation cover-up of Abramoff as proof of his qualifications to be President. A serious look into McCain’s work on the Abramoff Scandal would disqualify him. ...
The lobbying system Abramoff worked in was created by a lobbyist named Charlie Black. And Black is now running McCain’s campaign.
McCain limited the Abramoff scandal to a very, very narrow scope. He collected 750,000 pages of documents and selectively used them to justify a narrow investigation.
It seems that some 742,000 pages are still being suppressed by McCain.
So much for not stopping until the complete truth is told.
Do we need another president who says one thing and does another? Aren't you tired of Orwellian "war is peace" rhetoric?
After learning that "clean air" is a euphemism for relaxed standards and "no child left behind" means no child will be spared a regime of narrow unthinking conformity, one comes to realize that when a Republican rides around in the "Straight Talk Express" the chances are you will not get straight talk at all.
By now you've probably read or heard at least something about this weekend's revelation that - surprise, surprise - the Pentagon ran a major propaganda program right here in the good old U S of A using a raft of military analysts. The "presumably objective" analysts were carefully groomed, briefed, trained, and made to understand they if they voiced doubts they might lose "access." They channeled the "rah, rah, rah, sis boom bah, war in Iraq is a fabulous idea with no significant consequences" bullshit via the media to the consumer, aka the American populace.
This had so many advantages: The Pentagon would theoretically be at arm's length from the propaganda and thus maintain plausible deniability (until the NYT piece hit the internet and the newsstands). The "analysts" would both maintain their phony aura of independent credibility based on experience AND keep in the steady flow of income and prestige that went with appearing all over the place, highly sought-after experts with valuable perspective. The White House war machine would obtain and maintain Bush's so-fervently-desired war in Iraq. Iran would gain influence in Iraq and in the region once the Sunni Ba'ath party and Saddam were no longer in power and Iraq (their arch enemy) thoroughly weakened. And by keeping the American people confused, misled, and distracted there would be something to think about while our liberties and laws got trashed.
The only losers were the US military, with its dead, wounded, and exhausted; the Iraqi people thrust into civil war with no adequate policing to enforce a peace, no functioning government, perhaps hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced, and still short of water and electricity after all these years; regional stability; and US prestige and moral authority in the world (utterly lost under Bush).
What's not to like?
Well, a lot. You may read the entire article at the link above. BarbinMD thinks the term "traitor" might not be too harsh for those who knew better and still spewed the Pentagon talking points. This leads me to think the entire Bush era might well be called "the Betrayal Years." We, the American people, and the world have been betrayed repeatedly on so many levels that it will take decades to restore integrity to our nation.
If you don't have time for the NYT article, I recommend BarbinMD's highlights.
Mcjoan at Daily Kos gives us an update on all the good we've done for the Iraqi women:
Reason #5930 for the invasion of Iraq, liberating Iraqi women, has been thoroughly debunked.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture.
The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce.
...
That pretty much redefines freedom and democracy in Bushspeak. It means freedom for private contractors to exploit this war for every dime they can get. I'm not sure where the democracy fits into the picture, but it pretty much means fear and horror for everyone else involved who isn't a profiteer. [snip]
Bill Moyers' Journal speaks to the issue of the administration's lies, carefully orchestrated to lead us into an unnecessary, counterproductive, and--I would argue--illegal and immoral war.
That these war criminals are shameless enough to appear in public is simply astonishing. That we allow them to is scandalous.
Thank you, Mr. Moyers, for speaking up.
Would that the corporately controlled media would pick this up and run with it.
Madame Speaker, put impeachment back on the table now or admit that you have no more sense of law, morals, or shame than Bush and his henchpersons.
Yes, hell's own firstborn, Lord Cheney, is out there fighting for the WH version of FISA legislation, with that all-important telcom immunity. For your own safety, of course.
As BarbinMD concludes the fresh post in which she dissects Cheney's attempts to mislead:
Who knew? Only immunity for the companies that broke the law will prevent another 9/11. Of course it will also prevent the American people from ever learning the scope of the warrantless, illegal, domestic spying by this administration. And that of course is the whole point.
By MARK MAZZETTI WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.
The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terror suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. They were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that tapes documenting controversial interrogation methods could expose agency officials to greater risk of legal jeopardy, several officials said.
Read it all.
George W. Bush says we don't torture.h/t to Americablog --the BB
A treasure trove of guerrilla documents, according to the NYT, shows that 41% of the foreign jihadis in Iraq come from Saudi Arabia, which is also a major source of funding for them. Another big group comes from Libya, with Yemenis the third largest cohort. There were none from Lebanon, despite constant US accusations of Hizbullah involvement. Of the some 25,000 alleged insurgents in US custody in Iraq, only 390 are foreigners. 4/5s of the Iraqis and nearly all the foreigners are Sunni Arabs. (The US appears to have never captured a Shiite Iranian fighter in Iraq.) The statistics raise the question of why US military officials are always focusing on Iran and Hizbullah so much, when they clearly are not very much of the problem, while never, ever, mentioning the Saudi issue. The Guardian has more. [emphasis mine]
We are clearly not being given the whole picture.
Tired of Bushco catapulting the propaganda?
Have you told Nancy Pelosi lately that if impeachment is off the table, so is democracy? --the BB
The Great Oz notwithstanding, it's hardly a matter of peeking behind the curtain anymore. A thousand Totos have pulled the curtain down and everyone with eyes to see can behold the mendacity involved in fomenting and executing the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Those who led this nation into such an immoral fiasco KNEW their alleged reasons and rationales were all bullshit and they did it anyway. And the media enabled them. And we followed them. And here we are.
I want to thank Crooks and Liars for this video of Dick "Darth" Cheney speaking back in 1992. He explains why it was a good idea NOT to pursue the Gulf War into Baghdad. All the reasons why it would be a nightmare (perhaps even a quagmire?) are eloquently set forth.
In other words, Dick Cheney (at the very least) KNEW that invading and occupying Iraq would be a huge mess long before Commander Codpiece went for it.
So, the question is this: What sort of person, knowing what Dick Cheney had every reason to know, would support this fiasco?
[I've read about this response by Cheney to why Pres. George H. W. Bush didn't pursue Saddam back then, but tonight was the first time I'd seen and heard it. Just wow.]
Not to mention W's conversation with then-Prime Minister José Maria Aznar of Spain (you can read about it here and here and here).
These are the minutes of a Feb. 22, 2003 meeting between Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, which El Pais has just published. In this meeting, Bush declares that he would try to get a second UN vote condemning Hussein in order to satisfy his allies, but he doesn't really care what the resolution says and in any case with or without it he intends to invade Iraq shortly after March 15 (as soon as US forces were ready to invade). Bush also shows that he has no interest in what the UN weapons inspectors are finding, and indeed he treats the UN as a cat's paw. [Source]
Note the passage "he doesn't really care what the resolution says and in any case with or without it he intends to invade Iraq shortly after March 15...." Do you recall your civics lessons from way back when? How the Constitution and treaties ratified by the United States are the supreme law of the land? That part? Yeah. OK. Now you might have forgotten that according to treaties we have ratified, it is unlawful for any country to attack another except if they are attacked by that county or threat is imminent.
Now, let's rewind to 2003. Iraq posed no imminent threat to the United States. It is debatable whether it might have posed a longer-term threat but certainly no imminent one. Inspectors were on the ground, finally allowed to be present and inspect anywhere and anytime they wanted. Saddam did not kick them out; Bush pulled them out so he could attack.
I won't even go into the just war doctrine and the various criteria, which this preemptive invasion DID NOT MEET.
So, to sum up, we have an unlawful and immoral preemptive military action. Bush did not even fulfill the terms in the AUMF, so it didn't even fit within our own law supposedly authorizing it.
If you are reading this blog, you probably already know all this, but it doesn't hurt to remind ourselves now and again what a bunch of crooks and liars are running this country (and running a great nation, the one I love, into the ground).
As the drumbeats of war thrummed in the background back in early 2003 I said, to those within earshot, that Bush wanted his war and he was going to have it. Facts made no difference. Whatever might unfold would make no difference. It was going to happen because George [multiple expletives deleted] Bush wanted it to.
Now he and Cheney are trying to whip up a war with Iran. How stupid do you have to be to believe a single word that comes out of their lying mouths? They have repeatedly lied to the American people and the world. They have repeatedly been wrong about damn near everything.
OK. Deep breath.
People, we need to take our government back. --the BB
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blogger and do not represent the positions of any group or organization with which he may be affiliated. As one who spent decades stuffing down his opinions and emotions, I am inclined to cut loose here, which I believe is healthy, honest, and part of the process of sanctification in the long run. Politics and spirituality mingle freely here, along with theatre reviews, photography, and passionate talk about food, literature, and the human journey. If anything written here offends you, please find other blogs to read. I am here to share, not to do battle.
