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(sorry to shout - but you need to read this)

Bloggermann: 'Have you no sense of decency, sir?' - Bloggermann - MSNBC.com

It is to our deep national shame—and ultimately it will be to the President’s deep personal regret—that he has followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies—or even question their effectiveness or execution—to the Nazis of the past, and the al Qaeda of the present.

Today, in the same subtle terms in which Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating Iraq and 9/11 -- without ever actually saying so—the President quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of launching, “a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.”

Make no mistake here—the intent of that is to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the right, the “media.”

The President and the Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.

Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new and venomous side angle:

The attempt to link, by the simple expediency of one word—“media”—the honest, patriotic, and indeed vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with the evil of Al-Qaeda propaganda.

That linkage is more than just indefensible. It is un-American.
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More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek—a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration’s recent Nazi “kick” is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

- rob 6:23 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Rewriting constitutions

Karl wants you to know - you should be scared - of him.

At Bill library, Bush sounds sub-versive

"Bush appeared distracted and glanced repeatedly at his watch," Blumenthal writes about a presidential tour during the library's dedication. "When he stopped to gaze at the river, where Secret Service agents were stationed in boats, the guide said: 'Usually, you might see some bass fishermen out there.' Bush replied: 'A submarine could take this place out.'"
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Blumenthal, who attributes his account to two anonymous eyewitnesses, adds that "Rove showed keen interest in everything he saw, and asked questions, including about costs, obviously thinking about a future George W. Bush library and legacy.


"'You're not such a scary guy,' joked his guide. 'Yes, I am,' Rove replied. Walking away, he muttered deliberately and loudly: 'I change constitutions, I put churches in schools.'"

- rob 6:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The reviews are in:

Accuracy aside, ABC's '9/11' deserves to bomb

I once sat in a car forever waiting for my mom to come out of a grocery store. I thought that was the definition of "interminable." I had no idea "The Path to 9/11" was in my future.
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It's hard to fathom a brouhaha brewed over such a bore. ABC has received tens of thousands of letters -- including one from Bill Clinton's office -- insisting "Path" is wildly inaccurate and should not air. But ABC still plans to air the two-part movie.

Controversy could boost viewership, except "Path" is the dullest, worst-shot TV movie since ABC's disastrous "Ten Commandments" remake. It substitutes shaky handheld cameras and dumb dialogue for craftsmanship. It could not be more amateurish or poorly constructed unless someone had forgotten to light the sets.

An appalling secondary concern is the tone makes almost every pre-9/11 American look like a fool.

Look, there's a security guard yawning while terrorists plant the 1993 bomb at the World Trade Center. How dare a security guard work while tired.
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Excuse us all, writer Cyrus Nowrasteh and director David L. Cunningham, for not acting like Hitler Youth in the glory days before ordinary Americans knew commercial planes could be turned into missiles.

Idiots.

- rob 6:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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While Freedom may be another word for nothing much to lose, the GOP thinks "Reform" means the tax payers still have a lot to lose.

'Reform' costs Ohio $1.6 billion

Following a Republican initiative to privatize much of the workers' comp system, hundreds of millions of dollars has been parceled out to managed-care organizations (MCOs) over the last nine years to manage the medical claims of Ohio workers injured on the job, bureau data show.

Since that reform was instituted, however, the bureau's total operating costs have increased at more than twice the rate of inflation.

The bureau's medical costs have risen faster than medical cost inflation as well, even while the number of claims to be managed has plummeted.

Costs per claim have more than doubled -- even after allowing for inflation.

As a result, according to the Plain Dealer analysis, the bureau has spent roughly $1.6 billion more under managed care than it would have if costs per claim had been held to only inflationary increases.

Reminds me of the singing lobbiest who when asked by the politician what he wanted for the campaign donation, sang "just give me money money - that's what I want."

- rob 6:15 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The old "release it on a Friday rule"

As momma always said "if you don't have anything nice to say, say it on a Friday because no one reads the news on Saturday." Momma is very wise.

Senate: No prewar Saddam-al-Qaida ties

WASHINGTON - There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush's justification for invading Iraq.

Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none.
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The declassified document released Friday by the intelligence committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war.

It concludes that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.

But Saddam was a bad man - so we had to take him out.

And Mr. Johnson in the red house up the street is a bad man too so watch out for them bombs!

- rob 6:12 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Below you'll read about ABC's little GOP propaganda piece.

And after you do come back here and sign the petition: Keep "Path to 9/11" Propaganda Film Off The Air

This is what the petition says:

Mr. Iger,

"The Path to 9/11" mocks the truth and dishonors the memory of 9/11 victims to serve a cheap, callous political agenda. It irresponsibly misrepresents the facts and completely distorts the truth.

This film is a conservative attempt to rewrite the history of September 11 to blame Democrats, just in time for the election. You should honor the trust the public has given you with our public airwaves by keeping this propaganda off the air.

Sincerely,

I added this made up stream of conscious to add to the note:

There is indeed a lot of fault and mistakes to go round, and there is a lot to learn from these mistakes so they do not happen again.

With reality being filled with true factual mistakes and true moments of tension that could entertain a television audience making up mistakes and placing false blame is all the more egregious.

ABC broadcasts over the spectrum leased freely to it by the American people. It does damage to the long term good of the people to use the airwaves on what can easily be argued as propaganda.

An uniformed and misinformed electorate will not be able to make intelligent decisions as to whom they choose as their leaders.

A country that is ruled by politicians who are elected on falsehoods and fake histories will not run the nation to the benefit of its people and thus in the long run to the benefit of the businesses in the nation.

Time and history has shown us that an intelligent informed electorate has always known better what is good for the nation then either the political or business class.

Deceiving the public will only insure that in time Disney will have an audience less willing or even able to do business with any arm of Disney.

Has history really taught us that? Maybe history should have taught us that, but instead history was too busy teaching us what we needed to know for the state wide tests.

What is this ABC 9/11 film? Well if you went to any website besides TCS you'd probably know - but if you only went to TCS as your source of information (and why wouldn't you), you might not be fully in the loop.

This is due to the fact that we didn't publish much this week - I guess you get what you pay for.

Anyway, ABC/Disney is doing a Clinton hit job about 9/11 in attempt to scare American voters from Democrats in November.

Why you ask? Because: "Mickey Mouse is a Republican!" - Roy Disney, 1988.

How bad is the Path to 9/11 film? (and am I the only sicko who notes that one of the main ways to get to the WTC is via the Path trains?)

This is an intentional hit piece, with advanced copies going out to Conservative bloggers and press, but not to others. The writer of it and Rush Limbaugh are good friends and often snort oxycotin together. Um, that bit about oxycotin is what we call a "fictionalized scene."

A Mickey Mouse 9/11 from ABC

On Sunday and Monday nights, September 10 and 11, ABC TV, which is owned by Disney, the folks who brought you Mickey Mouse in 1928, plans to bring you a six-hour, $40 million docudrama, called “The Path to 9/11." It might well be called “The Path to Perdition,” seeing as how it bills itself as “an objective telling of the events of 9/11," when in fact the film was scripted by arch-conservative writer Cyrus Nowrasteh, whose friendship is claimed by no less than Rush Limbaugh. Don’t throw up yet. There’s more . . .

FBI Agent Who Consulted On Path to 9/11 Quit Halfway Through Because ‘They Were Making Things Up’

Richard Clarke Blasts Key Scene In ABC’s 9/11 Docudrama

The first night of Path to 9/11 has a dramatic scene where former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger refuses to give the order to the CIA to take out bin Laden — even though CIA agents, along with the Northern Alliance, have his house surrounded.

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

In short, this scene — which makes the incendiary claim that the Clinton administration passed on a surefire chance to kill or catch bin Laden — never happened. It was completely made up by Nowrasteh.

ABC’s 9/11 Docudrama Mangles Facts, Smears Washington Post

On the second night of Path to 9/11, a CIA analyst makes the following complaint:

Besides, ever since the Washington Post disclosed that we intercepted his calls, UBL [Usama bin Laden] stopped using phones altogether. He’s using couriers now, like they did a thousand years ago.

This isn’t true on a number of levels. First, as Daniel Benjamin makes clear, the publication at issue is the Washington Times:

Here’s what happened: On Aug. 21, 1998, the Washington Times, the capital’s unabashedly conservative newspaper, which regularly breaks more intelligence-related stories than any other daily, ran an article saying that Bin Laden “keeps in touch with the world via computers and satellite phones.” This occurred less than two weeks after the destruction of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam by al-Qaida and the day after the United States had bombed al-Qaida targets in Afghanistan and Sudan.

Not only is the scene inconsistent with the 9/11 commission report, it’s perpetuating an urban myth. Actually, “Bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone had already been widely reported by August 1998, and he stopped using it within days of a cruise missile attack on his training camps in Afghanistan.”

Why was it included anyway? One explanation: it is frequently cited by right-wing politicians “seeking to impose greater restrictions on the news media.” This is a film that doesn’t let the facts get in the way of its agenda.

Top Bush Counterterrorism Official: ABC’s Path to 9/11 Is ‘Shameful,’ ‘Straight Out of Disney and Fantasyland’

Last night on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, Roger Cressey — a top counterterrorism official to Bush II and Clinton — blasted ABC’s docudrama “The Path to 9/11.” Cressy said “it’s amazing…how much they’ve gotten wrong. They got the small stuff wrong” and “then they got the big stuff wrong.”

And the editorials are coming in: Fabricating history

ABC officials have downplayed concerns over the show's accuracy, explaining it "has composite and representative characters and incidents, and time compressions have been used for dramatic purposes."

However, the network is planning to distribute the miniseries to thousands of high school students via free downloads. The exposure will leave many young people thinking they are seeing fact rather than fiction.

Nowrasteh has a talent for writing fiction, including the pilot episode of the popular spy series La Femme Nikita, and a little-seen movie, Norma Jean, Jack and Me, in which a shipwrecked man washes up on an Caribbean island and discovers President Jack Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe alive and living out their golden years.

It's unfortunate that ABC would trust the depiction of a still painful and politically volatile subject such as 9/11 to a writer best known for fantastical storytelling.

And surprise - Democrats are fighting back.

From Senators Durbin, Reid, Stabenow, Schumer, and Dorgan

Dear Mr. Iger,

We write with serious concerns about the planned upcoming broadcast of The Path to 9/11 mini-series on September 10 and 11. Countless reports from experts on 9/11 who have viewed the program indicate numerous and serious inaccuracies that will undoubtedly serve to misinform the American people about the tragic events surrounding the terrible attacks of that day. Furthermore, the manner in which this program has been developed, funded, and advertised suggests a partisan bent unbecoming of a major company like Disney and a major and well respected news organization like ABC. We therefore urge you to cancel this broadcast to cease Disney’s plans to use it as a teaching tool in schools across America through Scholastic. Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.
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To quote Steve McPhereson, president of ABC Entertainment, “When you take on the responsibility of telling the story behind such an important event, it is absolutely critical that you get it right.”

Unfortunately, it appears Disney and ABC got it totally wrong.

Despite claims by your network’s representatives that The Path to 9/11 is based on the report of the 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Commissioners themselves, as well as other experts on the issues, disagree.

Richard Ben-Veniste, speaking for himself and fellow 9/11 Commissioners who recently viewed the program, said, “As we were watching, we were trying to think how they could have misinterpreted the 9/11 Commission’s findings the way that they had.” [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,” New York Times, September 6, 2006]

Richard Clarke, the former counter-terrorism czar, and a national security advisor to ABC has described the program as “deeply flawed” and said of the program’s depiction of a Clinton official hanging up on an intelligence agent, “It’s 180 degrees from what happened.” [“9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased,” New York Times, September 6, 2006]

Reports suggest that an FBI agent who worked on 9/11 and served as a consultant to ABC on this program quit halfway through because, “he thought they were making things up.” [MSNBC, September 7, 2006]
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Frankly, that ABC and Disney would consider airing a program that could be construed as right-wing political propaganda on such a grave and important event involving the security of our nation is a discredit both to the Disney brand and to the legacy of honesty built at ABC by honorable individuals from David Brinkley to Peter Jennings. Furthermore, that Disney would seek to use Scholastic to promote this misguided programming to American children as a substitute for factual information is a disgrace.

As 9/11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick said, “It is critically important to the safety of our nation that our citizens, and particularly our school children, understand what actually happened and why – so that we can proceed from a common understanding of what went wrong and act with unity to make our country safer.”

Should Disney allow this programming to proceed as planned, the factual record, millions of viewers, countless schoolchildren, and the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged. We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program. We look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Sincerely,

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid
Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin
Senator Debbie Stabenow
Senator Charles Schumer
Senator Byron Dorgan

From the Clinton folks themselves:

As you know, ABC intends to air a two part miniseries, “The Path to 9/11,” which purports to document the events leading up to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. ABC claims that the show is based on the 9/11 Commission Report and, as Steve McPherson, President of ABC Entertainment, has said: “When you take on the responsibility of telling the story behind such an important event, it is absolutely critical that you get it right.”

By ABC’s own standard, ABC has gotten it terribly wrong. The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely. It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known.

Despite several requests to view the miniseries, we have not been given the courtesy of seeing it. This is particularly troubling given the reputation of Cyrus Nowrasteh, the drama’s writer/producer. Mr. Nowrasteh has been criticized for inaccurately portraying historical events in the past. In response to previous criticism, he has even said, “I made a conscious effort not to contact any members of the Administration because I didn’t want them to stymie my efforts.” Indeed, while we have not been given the courtesy of a viewing....

All this attention has made Scholastic not only think twice about their participation in the fiasco, but to turn it on its head:

Scholastic Inc. Veers from "Path to 9/11"

Educational media giant Scholastic, Inc. announced it's dropping its original classroom companion guides to a controversial new docudrama about the events preceding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks -- and replacing them with materials stressing critical thinking and media literacy.

“After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues,” said Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic, in a press release.

The new materials, Scholastic said, will stress three issues:

1. Media Literacy - what is a docudrama; how does it differ from a documentary; what are the differences between factual reporting and a dramatization?

So if you want to write a letter too scroll on up to the top of this post and sign the petition. Or, as a reword for getting this far - you can click on this link.

- rob 6:07 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Take off eh

Well you may not agree that this century sucks, but you have to agree it is pretty damn ridiculous.

Jewish man removed from airplane for praying

Some fellow passengers are questioning why an Orthodox Jewish man was removed from an Air Canada Jazz flight in Montreal last week for praying.

The man was a passenger on a Sept. 1 flight from Montreal to New York City when the incident happened.
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"He wasn't exactly praying out loud but he was lurching back and forth," Faguy added.

The action didn't seem to bother anyone, Faguy said, but a flight attendant approached the man and told him his praying was making other passengers nervous.
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The man, who spoke neither English nor French, was escorted off the airplane.

Sure this is in Canada, but this being a biased site we're somehow going to link the above article to Bush via placement of a link to another article in this same post that has nothing to with the above plane flight.


Book: Bush told reporter Jews are 'all going to hell'

In The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power, Austin-based journalist James Moore and Wayne Slater, senior political reporter for the Dallas Morning News, will allege that Bush once made anti-semitic comments to a reporter.

"You know what I'm gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don't you Herman?" a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.

When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: "I'm telling 'em they're all going to hell."

Bush's thoughts on the fate of non-Christian souls became a minor source of controversy after he told the Houston Post in 1993 that only those who "accept Jesus Christ" go to Heaven. However, the future president was also earlier briefly engaged to a half-Jewish woman.

So now I will unfairly join these two articles together:

I guess Bush doesn't care if that Jewish man made his flight of not - Bush knows he's going to hell anyway.

Note: Blogger seems a bit bloggered today - so posting may be light (no like it has been heavy for the past few days)

- rob 10:53 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Har Har:

Bill Clinton is placed against the wall and just before the order to shoot him is given, he yells, "Earthquake!".

The firing squad falls into a panic and Bill jumps over the wall and escapes in the confusion.

John Kerry is the second one placed against the wall. The squad is reassembled and John ponders what his old pal Bill has done. Before the order to shoot is given, John yells, "Tornado!".

Again the squad falls apart and Kerry slips over the wall thus making his escape.

The last person, George W. Bush, is placed against the wall. He is thinking, "I see the pattern here, just scream out a disaster and hop over the wall."

As the firing squad is reassembled and the rifles raised in his direction, he smirks his famous smirk and yells, "Fire!"

- rob 10:35 AM - [PermaLink] -

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