DOWNLOADS: (239)

PLAYS: (2050)

Embed

Thom Hartmann takes our corporate media and the cheerleaders for war with Iraq to task and ten years after our invasion, asks 'Where are the apologies?'

Via Truthout: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq:

Yesterday, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. And, over the course of the past ten years, we've learned more and more about how the war with Iraq actually started.

It's incredibly easy to blame the Bush administration for its lies that led us into Iraq. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and company weren't the only ones who played an integral role in convincing this nation that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that WMD's were a forgone conclusion.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, corporate media – and even NPR and PBS - were abuzz with the talking points of the Bush Administration, echoing claims that Iraq had its hands on "yellow cake uranium" and that it had a massive arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction."

Thanks to the media's repeated claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were immediate threats to our nation, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, nearly three-quarters of Americans believed the lie promoted by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11.

One of the biggest proponents of the Iraq War was Bill O'Reilly.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (578)

PLAYS: (8011)

Embed

Stephen Colbert had a bit of fun this Thursday evening with Fox carping about the polls, which are moving away from Mitt Romney, supposedly being skewed to favor Democrats. Heaven forbid, as Stuart Varney complained, they're basing their samples on "scientific gobbledygook."

Colbert informed the audience that he's got his own source of polls -- conservative blogger Dean Chambers -- Conservative Polling Alternative Plans Expansion:

Dean Chambers, founder of unskewedpolls.com, is expanding his empire after receiving calls of encouragement from Republicans this week.

Since his website caught fire this week for 'unskewing' presidential polls — Chambers re-weights national polling data on the assumption that more Republicans will vote than poll results show — the blogger has purchased two additional domain names: unskewedpolitics.com and unskewedmedia.com. [...]

The 'unskewed' methodology was widely criticized this week — even Scott Rasmussen, whose numbers are Chambers's statistical baseline, said the method wasn't sound — but Chambers says he has been getting calls of encouragement since Monday.

"I've been hearing from people inside the Tea Party movement and Republican movement calling to say that they support what I'm doing," said Chambers. "It's given them a boost of confidence. They're glad to see that someone's questioning the credibility of national polls." [...]

As far-right Republicans embrace the 'unskewed' numbers, even the Romney campaign is now suggesting that national polling can't be trusted.

In response to criticism this week, Chambers does concede that his polls may not necessarily be accurate — "Unskewing isn't exact, it's an estimate," he says — but the blogger does believe that his numbers can be trusted in what they reflect about Nov. 6.

"Some people say I'm creating an illusion, but that will be settled on Election Day," he said.

Republicans last great hope -- someone doing polling who is too biased for Rasmussen. Yee hah.

DOWNLOADS: (988)

PLAYS: (13272)

Embed

Jon Stewart took a shot at Sarah Palin as well on this Monday evening's The Daily Show, but he spent the majority of this segment absolutely skewering Sean Hannity and Dan Senor, or as we like to call him, Baghdad Bob, for their sheer and utter hypocrisy on the topic of whether the United States ought to be promoting democracy around the world.

Apparently their view is completely dependent on whether it's George W. Bush, or that Kenyan usurper they hate so much in the White House. Stewart ended the segment by having Senor literally debate himself.

Maybe that hack Scarborough can show Senor this clip the next time they decide to have that neocon warmonger sitting in on the entire three hours of Morning Joke again.

DOWNLOADS: (451)

PLAYS: (551)

Embed

I guess former Vice President Dick Cheney wasn't satisfied with only running in front of the cameras on every single network in town to try to hawk his new book and let everyone know how proud he is of being a war criminal. No, he decided to spend over an hour at the American Enterprise Institute this week as well for an interview with his former stenographer biographer, Stephen Hayes.

Dick Cheney defends use of torture on al-Qaida leaders:

Dick Cheney, the former US vice-president, has claimed Osama bin Laden would not have been tracked down and killed if it had not been for information gathered by torturing captured al-Qaida leaders.

In a robust defence of what he called "enhanced interrogation", Cheney said it produced "phenomenal" results and dismissed the Obama administration's investigations of its legality as "objectionable" and a "terrible precedent".

Speaking ahead of ceremonies to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the former vice-president rejected accusations that the use of torture undermined the moral authority of the US overseas.

"The notion that somehow the United States was wildly torturing anybody is not true," he said. "One of the most controversial techniques is waterboarding ... Three people were waterboarded. Not dozens, not hundreds. Three. And the one who was subjected the most often to that was Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and it produced phenomenal results for us."

Khaled Sheikh Mohammed is awaiting trial before a US tribunal accused of being the architect of the 9/11 attacks.

But while Cheney, who was appearing at a question and answer session at the conservative American Enterprise Institute to promote his new memoir, In My Time, insisted only a small number of men were subjected to "enhanced interrogation", he made no mention of the rendition programme in which the US abducted individuals and handed them over to a third country for questioning under torture.

Cheney said that waterboarding Khaled Sheikh Mohammed "helped produce the intelligence that allowed us to get Osama bin Laden".

As they noted, Hayes allowed Cheney to give Bush credit for the intelligence that might have led to killing Osama bin Laden, even thought his administration wasn't all that concerned about him as has been noted over and over for years now -- Flashback: Seven years ago today, Bush received ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ memo.:

Today marks seven years since the day President Bush received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” (See the memo here.) At the time, Bush was vacationing at his ranch in Crawford, TX and stayed on vacation the rest of August 2001. Here’s how the administration reacted, according to the 9/11 Commission report...

Cheney was also apparently very proud of our country's use of torture as Think Progress noted here -- Cheney Claims Waterboarding ‘Produced Phenomenal Results’:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (159)

PLAYS: (1039)

Embed

While discussing whether or not we can say that 2012 Republican primary now has two front runners, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, Fox News Sunday panel member Juan Williams went through the litany of reasons that Perry might do well in the GOP primary race, but is going to have some trouble in the general election because he's going to be painted “as an extremist and fringe.”

When Williams pointed out that Perry's record on job creation in Texas isn't all that it's being built up to be, naturally the rest of him pounced on him and here's how The Weekly Standard columnist and Cheney “biographer” Stephen Hayes responded:

HAYES: Every time his job record is attacked, it's a win for Rick Perry, because you can't attack jobs that don't exist. So that's... it's reinforcing the sense that people have that Texas has actually created jobs.

If Stephen Hayes thinks Perry can't be attacked effectively for his so called "Texas Miracle", I've got a few posts for him to read. Here's Rachel Maddow from this past June -- Rachel Maddow Debunks Praise for Rick Perry's 'Texas Miracle'. And Paul Krugman from earlier this month -- The Texas Unmiracle.

And here's more from Jon Perr on the not just Rick Perry, but where the Republicans' policies are taking the United States -- Republicans Push National Race to the Bottom.

DOWNLOADS: (1070)

PLAYS: (913)

Embed

Another Sunday, another week where Bloody Bill Kristol proves himself to be wrong about everything. After some discussion on whether President Obama is going to have trouble being reelected and The Hill's A.B. Stoddard pointing out that he might unless he ends up being fortunate enough to run against someone who voted for Paul Ryan's budget plan, Bret Baier asks Kristol if the GOP would make make "reforming" "entitlements" into an asset. Kristol of course thinks that would be a winning issue for them.

And naturally he and Stephen Hayes refuse to admit that privatizing Medicare would be putting an end to the program as we know it and no one on the Fox News Sunday panel bothered to point out that Social Security is not responsible for any of the problems we have now with our deficit.

Jon Perr has been writing a lot about what was in Paul Ryan's budget for some time now and lays out very plainly why Hayes is not telling the truth on what his plan would do to Medicare and Social Security in one of the earlier posts he wrote on it here -- GOP Budget Proposes to Ration Medicare, Privatize Social Security.

Transcript:

BAIER: Bill, can you imagine any scenario where entitlement reform could be an asset to Republicans in 2012?

KRISTOL: Sure, because people understand, I think, and certainly the right candidate can help the American public further understand, that we need to fundamentally reform entitlements. We're $1.5 trillion in debt. Where's that debt coming from? It's coming from entitlements, which are 60 percent of the federal budget and which are going up much more quickly than the rest of the federal budget.

Despite President Obama's irresponsible domestic discretionary spending, it's entitlements that are at the core of the problem. So of course Republicans are going to run on entitlement reform, as they should, and I think they can do so successfully.

BAIER: Now, you have spoken out in favor of Congressman Paul Ryan getting in this race.Is there any development on that? Do you really believe that he's getting in?

KRISTOL: Well, the main development -- and maybe I can hold this up -- is I get sent this in the mail, a Ryan/Rubio 2012 button, which shows huge grassroots support for this effort. You know? People all over the country are having these buttons produced at their own expense.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (209)

PLAYS: (353)

Embed

On Fox News Sunday, Juan Williams is asked why so many people believe that President Obama is a Muslim and Williams states the obvious, the right-wing media are the ones pushing this lie.

Behind Obama Muslim myth stands the right wing:

Two recently released polls show that an increasing number of Americans believe the falsehood that President Obama is a Muslim. According to the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of people who believe this false claim cite the media as the source of that information -- and, indeed, the right-wing media have incessantly promoted this lie.

Right wing media relentlessly drive Obama-Muslim falsehood

Right-wing media have relentlessly pushed the myth that Obama is a Muslim. In the past two years, the conservative media has continued to lie about Obama's personal history, dishonestly distorting his faith to claim that he is in fact a Muslim and not a Christian. Those untruths have run the gamut -- from outright claiming that Obama is a Muslim to alleging that he "is a Christian that Christians don't recognize"; from using his family and upbringing in Indonesia to portray him as an "Islamist" to claiming he has an agenda that shows he has a "preference of Islam over Christianity"; and from distorting comments Obama or his administration has made to picking out symbols associated with his administration to perpetuate the lie about his faith. Conservatives have even used the Pew and Time polls today to further rehash these falsehoods.

Go read the whole post. Media Matters has a very long list of examples documented there.

DOWNLOADS: (240)

PLAYS: (281)

Embed

Former Mitt Romney Communications Strategist Kevin Madden insists that the Republican Party is being unfairly painted as the "Party of No" and that they have "put on the table substantive alternatives for the American public", but when pressed by Juan Williams about just what those ideas are, I only heard him give one specific, tax cuts. What I wish Williams would have asked him is why he thought Republicans should have been opposing the health care bill when it was basically nothing but his old boss' "Romney-care". That used to be one of their Republican "substantive alternatives" that they decided to obstruct because a Democrat proposed it.

MADDEN: The Democrats have spent the better part of almost two years now saying that the Republicans are the “Party of No” and it has not worked. It is also... it's a false argument because throughout the entire set whether it was the stimulus debate or the healthcare debate, the Republicans have put on the table substantive alternatives for the American public. They said at a time when the public is very angry about spending, we want to reduce spending. They've said in a time of a lot of uncertainty in the markets, they want more certainty with tax cuts and spur the private sector versus the government. And that is the contrast that we're seeing right now in a lot of these races, and it gives the Republicans a decided advantage.

And I'm not saying that in a -- I'm saying it in a clinical fashion. When you look at the anger about spending right now and the Democrats, every answer they have is a big government solution that has a huge price tag on it. And it puts them in very, very a difficult position. [crosstalk]

WILLIAMS: When I look at the numbers, here is what I see. Americans think less of Republicans than they do of the Democrats in Congress and much less than they do of President Obama. And when you are thinking about economic policy, Americans aren't about, oh, yeah, keep cutting taxes. No, people are saying let's be responsible in terms of how we spend money, let's reduce the deficit, let's get serious about our economic future. Let's not take radical steps, like oh, throw more money to the rich.

MADDEN: There is absolutely no credibility to that argument when you look at the Democrats... when you look at the spending bills they've passed in these last two years. They have no credibility.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (721)

PLAYS: (1345)

Embed

One of the resounding themes we heard from the talking heads last week was the we need to keep those Bush tax cuts in place and that if they're allowed to expire, it's going to harm small business and the "job creators".

Bob Cesca passed on this graph from the Wall Street Journal of all places that illustrates just who those tax cuts have benefited and who they're going to harm if they're allowed to expire without a fix, like our middle class. As the chart shows you have to be making $300,000 a year or so before allowing them to expire starts to hit you.

Republicans have done nothing but shamelessly stood up for their ultra-rich campaign donors. We'll see if they're going to keep it up this weekend on the bobble head shows.

DOWNLOADS: (381)

PLAYS: (222)

Embed

After being asked if the Iranian regime is hoping the United States will attack them to stifle the pro-democracy movement there Hayes thinks it is possible but doesn’t think it will work because of this:

Hayes: Right now you’ve got an Iran and an Iranian population that I think is in some ways tilting toward the United States, in no small measure because they’ve seen what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. They’ve seen that people in their region, their neighbors, can have full elections—can have fair elections and they want that kind of representative government for themselves. So I don’t think that that’s necessarily going to work if that’s in fact what’s happened in Iran.

Who does he think he’s kidding? They watched two of their neighbors get invaded and occupied and that’s why the people there want democracy and like the United States? While I have no doubt that a great deal of the people there would like to have democracy and get out from under the repressive regime there, holding up Iraq and Afghanistan as some model they aspire to is just outright ridiculous neocon history revisionism. Not that I’d expect anything different from Dick Cheney sycophant Stephen Hayes.