Quote of the Day

Who says Bush lied???

"We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government's dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded." -- From "

Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction" chaired by Lord Butler, published yesterday by the British House of Commons

NY Times Headline on Marriage Amendment

On July 9, the NY Times ran the following headline regarding the vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. 

THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE MARRIAGE ISSUE;
"Conservatives Press Ahead on Anti-Gay Issue."

Fair and Balanced???  Can you imagine them running a headline like this on say the partial birth abortion ban... 

"Liberals Press Ahead on blocking anti Baby Killing law"

Media Ignores Kerry Remarks Until Bush Points Out

Journalists 'Embarrassed' Bushies Cover Kerry Better Than They Do
When John Flip-Flop Kerry boasted to a group of fat-cat supporters in Boston that he and running mate John Edwards were "proud" they had voted against funding the troops they had voted to send to Iraq, you weren't supposed to hear that. Had it been up to the media establishment, you wouldn't have heard that.
So, why did you hear it? You can thank President Bush's re-election campaign.
The pro-Kerry New York Times fretted today that, taking a cue from "Bill Clinton's pioneering effort in 1992," the president's "operatives had somehow arranged for their own audio feed, they refused to say how, and were listening intently, ready to pounce on any opening for attack."

After the Bushies alerted the media to Kerry's latest gaffe, even the likes of the Washington Post, Boston Globe and the Times itself had to report the news or risk being upstaged by rivals.

Exposed and Humiliated

"Several journalists who cover Mr. Kerry later said they were too embarrassed to say publicly that it took the Bush operatives to spot what was notable in Mr. Kerry's remarks," the Times noted.
Don't worry, "operatives" of Big Media. The Republicans will keep helping you do the job you're too biased or lazy to do yourselves.

Kerry Didn't Read the Intelligence Report Before Voting for War

This is classic...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush (news - web sites) read a key Iraq (news - web sites) intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.  
 
"Along with other senators, he was briefed on the contents of the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) by (then-CIA (news - web sites) Director) George Tenet and other administration intelligence officials," said Kerry spokesman Phil Singer.

Kerry's campaign has challenged Bush to say whether he read the complete intelligence report before deciding to go to war, or whether he just read a one-page summary, which Democrats say gave him none of the dissenting views included in the full version.

The Kerry campaign stepped up the attack on Wednesday, sending out an e-mail with the headline, "Did anyone in the White House read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq?"

In a conference call organized by the campaign, Senate Intelligence Committee Democrat Richard Durbin said Bush should have read the 90-page report issued in October 2002.

Asked if Kerry read it, Durbin responded, "I don't know."

Communist Press Scoops Partisan American Media

"Mr. Speaker, leave it to the former head of the KGB to inject a little common sense into the American presidential race — and leave it to the partisan American media to ignore it," Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican, said yesterday on the House floor.
"During the recent [Group of Eight] summit in Georgia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said to a gathering of the news media — and I quote — 'I am deeply convinced that President Bush's political adversaries have no moral right to attack him over Iraq.'
"I did not find this quote in the New York Times or The Washington Post because they refused to report it. I didn't find it broadcast on CBS or NBC or ABC News either. I found this quote in China Daily, straight from Beijing," the congressman said.
"You could have found the same quote in some Russian publications as well, including Pravda and the British-based Reuters news service. But you could not find that quote in the American media except for one outlet — CBN.
"It's a sorry day for American journalism when they find themselves out-balanced by their counterparts in communist China and Russia. It's also a new low for partisan media bias."

Newsweek Writer Admits Media Wants Kerry to Win Election

Recognition of the obvious. The media “wants Kerry to win” and so “they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic” and “there’s going to be this glow about” them, Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, admitted on Inside Washington over the weekend. He should know. His magazine this week sports a smiling Kerry and Edwards on its cover with the yearning headline, “The Sunshine Boys?” Inside, an article carrying Thomas’ byline contrasted how “Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine.” The cover story touted how Kerry and Edwards “became a buddy-buddy act, hugging and whispering like Starsky and Hutch after consuming the evidence.”

Newsweek’s competitor, Time, also gushed about the Democratic ticket, dubbing them, in the headline over their story, “The Gleam Team.”

The Washington Post on Sunday well illustrated the media’s infatuation with Kerry and Edwards. “Kerry Vows to Restore 'Truth' to Presidency,” announced a July 11 front page headline. Inside, on page A-8, a headline declared: “Kerry, Edwards Revel in Brotherhood of Campaign.” The subhead: “Energy, Enthusiasm Infectious as Democrats Take Message to Battleground States.”

On Inside Washington, a weekend discussion show taped at and run by the Gannett-owned CBS affiliate in Washington, DC, WUSA-TV, and carried by many PBS stations across the country, Thomas pointed out the boost to the Kerry/Edwards ticket provided by the press corps:

“There’s one other base here: the media. Let’s talk a little media bias here. The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards -- I’m talking about the establishment media, not Fox, but -- they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there’s going to be this glow about them that some, is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.”

The week’s Newsweek, dated July 19, certainly backs up Thomas’ contention. Over a smiling picture on the cover of Kerry and Edwards, Newsweek ever hopefully asks: “The Sunshine Boys?”

Inside, at least in the Web-posted version, the headline reads: “Warming Up Kerry.” The subhead: “Blue skies: Their energy was infectious, but their numbers barely moved. Can Kerry-Edwards convert smiles into votes against Team Bush? Game on.” Howard Fineman and Richard Wolffe asserted at one point:

“Indeed, Edwards's ingratiating incandescence has already brightened Kerry. The two became a buddy-buddy act, hugging and whispering like Starsky and Hutch after consuming the evidence.”

“The Boyish Wonder” is the headline over a story on which Thomas shared a byline with Susannah Meadows and Arian Campo-Flores. The subhead: “Happy warrior: He was no superstar. But John Edwards's determination and ability to read the defense took him to the top.” The trio began the laudatory piece:

“In politics, self-made men seem to fall into two categories: sunny and dark. Both Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon began as farm boys, but while Ike radiated corn-fed smiles, Nixon seemed to be constantly brooding over some slight. In the 2004 election, Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine...”

More Bogus Headlines from AP

The AP continues to put negative spins on their polls. Of all the items in the below poll, they choose Arrogant as the headline where Bush and Kerry are within the magrin of error. 52% of voters say Bush is arrogant...barely over half and they choose to run that as their headline ! Since more people say Bush is wealthy versus Kerry I worry about where these people get their info. Bush is worth about $15M and Kerry around a BILLION. I would say that Kerry is the wealthy one.

The Associated Press has a new poll that lists seven adjectives and asks if they describe George W. Bush and John Kerry

"Decisive": Bush 67%, Kerry 45% (Bush by 22%)
"Arrogant": Bush 52%, Kerry 44% (Bush by 8%)
"Wealthy": Bush 90%, Kerry 85% (Bush by 5%)
"Likeable": Bush 66%, Kerry 62% (Bush by 4%)
"Honest": Bush 53%, Kerry 53% (even)
"Compassionate": Bush 59%, Kerry 60% (Kerry by 1%)
"Intelligent": Bush 63%, Kerry 83% (Kerry by 20%)

The poll also asked, "Who makes you feel more optimistic about America's future?" Fifty percent said Bush, 44% Kerry, 1% both and 4% neither.

So what headline did the AP put on its dispatch about the poll? "More Voters See Bush as Arrogant."

The wire service did change its headline on a later version of the story: "Bush Seen Decisive, Kerry Smart."

Jon Edwards' Tax Dodge

While the Liberal Dynamic Duo rails against Benedict Arnold CEOs and other "rich" who don't pay their fair share, it appears that Edwards has been very successful in dogding paying his fair share. Don't hold your breath for the media to report this one. We alos don't know about the Kerry/Heinz taxes since she won't release her tax returns. Imagine the uproar if the media discovered Bush pulled this dodge? Kevin

Senator Edwards talks about the need to provide health care for all, but that didn't stop him from using a clever tax dodge to avoid paying $591,000 into the Medicare system. While making his fortune as a trial lawyer in 1995, he formed what is known as a "subchapter S" corporation, with himself as the sole shareholder.

Instead of taking his $26.9 million in earnings directly in the following four years, he paid himself a salary of $360,000 a year and took the rest as corporate dividends. Since salary is subject to 2.9% Medicare tax but dividends aren't, that meant he shielded more than 90% of his income. That's not necessarily illegal, but dodging such a large chunk of employment tax skates perilously close to the line.

Joe Wilson Lied...Media Ignores

All the broadcast shows have ignored a part of the senate report on intelligence before the war. The report says it was indeed Wilson's wife that recommended him for the job and his assertion that Bush lied, because he knew the documents were forged, was a lie because the forged docs didn't turn up until 8 months after Wilson's report. The report also says the CIA did not brief Bush or Cheney on the Wilson trip. Will the media apologize for all the stories about how Bush tried to kill his wife? Don't hold your breath since they haven't even bothered to report on the findings !!! Kevin

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, "there's this crazy report" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson spent a total of eight days in Niger "drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people," as he put it. On the basis of this "investigation" he confidently concluded that there was no way Saddam sought uranium from Africa. Oddly, Wilson didn't bother to write a report saying this. Instead he gave an oral briefing to a CIA official.

"Because CIA analysts did not believe that the [Wilson] report added any new information to clarify the issue," the report states flatly on page 46, "they did not use the report to produce any further analytical products or highlight the report for policymakers. CIA's briefer did not brief the vice president on the report, despite the vice president's previous questions about the issue."

Media Continues to Ignore the UN Oil for Food Scandal

More on how France and Russia profited by the Oil for Food program and their motives for opposing the enforcing of the UN resolutions. Kevin

WASHINGTON — Transcripts of secret U.N. Security Council sessions show that U.S. and British diplomats were constantly thwarted by their French, Russian and Chinese counterparts while investigating Saddam Hussein's dirty deals under the oil-for-food program.

Minutes of meetings of the so-called 661 Committee — the U.N. Security Council panel that oversaw Iraq sanctions and the oil-for-food program — have been recently turned over to U.S. congressional committees investigating the $10 billion bribery kickback scandal, officials said.

According to a top congressional investigator who has read the highly sensitive documents, the minutes confirm that there was widespread knowledge inside the United Nations years before the war that Saddam's regime was ripping off the $100 billion program by demanding kickbacks from oil traders and suppliers of humanitarian aid to Iraq.

The investigator said the transcripts reveal that U.S. and British diplomats repeatedly raised questions about suspicious contracts, but efforts to investigate corruption were blocked by Russia, France, China and, at times, Syria.

"The Russians and Chinese made clear their position was that they were against sanctions on Iraq and didn't like this program, so they were not going to help in any way," the investigator said.

"The French were two-faced about it. They would respond to American and British requests to halt contracts by saying there was not enough evidence, or more information was needed. In the end, the Americans and British were often forced to back down on these inquiries."

France and Russia were two of the biggest opponents of the U.S. war effort to oust Saddam, and Russian and French politicians and businessmen were the most numerous names published in the Baghdad newspaper al-Mada earlier this year of recipients of sweetheart oil deals from Saddam's regime.

Ihsan Karim, the Iraqi official heading the probe into alleged corruption, was killed last Thursday.

Kerry too busy for terror briefing

So, Kerry thinks he can be a better president than Bush and protect us from terrorists, but doesn/t even take the time to get briefed on the threats. He has the gall to say Bush is hyping the terror threat...maybe its because he has no clue since he hasn't bothered to take the briefings ! Kevin

KERRY PASSES UP TERROR BRIEFING: 'I JUST HAVEN'T HAD TIME'
Fri Jul 09 2004 09:23:56 ET

Just hours before attending an all-star celebrity fundraising concert in New York, Dem presidential candidate John Kerry revealed how he has been too busy for a real-time national security briefing.

"I just haven't had time," Kerry explained in an interview.

Kerry made the startling comments on CNN's LARRY KING LIVE Thursday night.

KING: News of the day, Tom Ridge warned today about al Qaeda plans of a large-scale attack on the United States. Didn't increase the -- you see any politics in this? What's your reaction?

KERRY: Well, I haven't been briefed yet, Larry. They have offered to brief me. I just haven't had time.

Cheney's F Bomb

So, the media is all up in a tizzy that Cheney dropped the F bomb on senator Leahy. They can't believe how much the Republicans have destroyed civility in politics. Guess calling Bush Hitler, a nazi, a miserable failure, a liar, a misleader, he went to war for oil, went to war for Haliburton, he is preying on our fears, he betrayed the country, he is trampling civil rights and on and on is a positive campaign. I forgot, only Republicans can hurt civility, not Dems.

Back to Cheney. The media and Dems are up in arms. Funny, back when Kerry said, during an interview with Rolling Stone, "Bush F**ked up things in the Iraq war", everyone said he was showing his outrage, he was being hip, connecting with young voters. The Wash Post didn't even mention the word...they said "Kerry used an expletive to describe Bush foreign policy". When Cheney used the F word they spelled it out in the paper because they needed to "show the corsening of the debate". Hmmm...double standard in coverage? I certainly think so !

Per Cheney, it was something that needed to be said. Leahy is one of the biggest A-Holes in politics. The day before the F bomb, Leahy said "Men and women are dying in Iraq so that Cheney's Big Oil pals can benefit". He then walks up to Cheney like they are old pals. Maybe he should have thought how what he says corsens the debate. Kevin

The Truth About Minimum Wage Earners

A little perspective for the outcry about raising the minimum wage to save "working families". Kevin

Sen. John Kerry's latest scheme to raise the quality of life for America's poor is to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7 an hour. Of the 1.5 percent of the workforce that earns the minimum wage or below (about 2.1 million people), more than half are under age 25. More than 500,000 of them are between the ages of 16 and 19, which means that they likely live with a parent or relative, are in school and work part-time for extra pocket change. Many of the rest of them are in entry-level or temporary jobs, which means they likely will get raises in the future. (Indeed, a study of minimum-wage earners revealed that 63 percent saw their wages increase over a year.) As the Wall Street Journal notes: "Three-fifths are in the leisure and hospitality industry, which means in jobs that often come with tips in addition to wages." Furthermore, unmarried workers are more likely to earn the minimum wage or less than their married counterparts. And finally, only 15 percent of those earning the minimum wage or below are lone earners with children.

(so, 315K people of the 2.1M have kids. that's .1% of the total US population. My question is, why do people making min wage decide to have kids in the first place?)

Still, Mr. Kerry insists, "I'm running for president to build a stronger economy that lifts up families and expands opportunity for hard-working Americans."

Instead of helping the poor, Mr. Kerry's minimum-wage increase, along with his other economic plans, would kick many of them out of the job market. Only John Kerry could view that as championing the poor.

Media Ignores More WMDs

Like many other stories, the "mainstream media" ignored this story about Polish soldiers thwarting terrorists attempts to get Sarin Gas shells. Must be because it goes against their hyping stories that the weapons never existed. Kevin

About a dozen artillery shells found in Iraq by Polish troops are being checked for sarin after initial tests were positive for the nerve agent, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

Terrorists may have been close to obtaining munitions containing the deadly nerve agent cyclosarin that Polish soldiers recovered last month in Iraq, the head of Poland's military intelligence said Friday.

Polish troops had been searching for munitions as part of their regular mission in south-central Iraq when they were told by an informant in May that terrorists had made a bid to buy the chemical weapons, which date back to Saddam Hussein's war with Iran in the 1980s, Gen. Marek Dukaczewski told reporters in Warsaw. "We were mortified by the information that terrorists were looking for these warheads and offered $5,000 apiece," Dukaczewski said. "An attack with such weapons would be hard to imagine. All of our activity was accelerated at appropriating these warheads."

In May, a booby-trapped artillery shell apparently filled with the sarin nerve agent exploded alongside a Baghdad road but caused no serious injuries to the U.S. forces who discovered it. At the time, officials stopped short of claiming the munition was definite evidence of a large weapons stockpile in prewar Iraq or evidence of recent production by Saddam's regime.

The warheads all contained cyclosarin, said Polish Gen. Mieczyslaw Bieniek, commander of a multinational force.

"Laboratory tests showed the presence in them of cyclosarin, a very toxic gas, five times stronger than sarin and five times more durable," Bieniek told Poland's TVN24 at the force's Camp Babylon headquarters.

"If these warheads, which were still usable, were used on a military base like Camp Babylon, they would have caused unforeseeable damage."

The tests were done by U.S. experts, who were conducting more.

The munitions were found in a bunker in the Polish sector, but Polish officials refused to be more specific.

Count Every Vote Unless it isn't for a Dem

Funny how the party that says every vote should count is always suing to not count votes that don't go for them. Just like with disqualifying the military ballots in FL, the Dems sued to not allow Nader on the ballot in AZ. Now Nader's camp folded because they have no resources to fight. So much for counting every vote. Kevin

PHOENIX (AP) -- Supporters of Ralph Nader on Friday abandoned their effort to get the independent candidate on the presidential ballot in Arizona after Democrats challenged the validity of thousands of signatures.

Nader's campaign had submitted more than 22,000 signatures to Arizona election officials June 9 -- far more than the 14,694 valid signatures required by state law to compete against President Bush and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Two Democratic voters had filed a lawsuit last week, backed by the Arizona Democratic Party, questioning the validity of Nader's nominating petitions and other documents. The Democrats argued that more than 70 percent of the signatures were invalid.

As a judge prepared to hear arguments in the case, the campaign said a review by the secretary of state's office found that the campaign was about 550 signatures short of the number needed to get on the ballot.

``We withdrew after elections officials came out with us being 550 signatures short,'' said Nader campaign spokesman Kevin Zeese. ``There's no question that deep-pocketed Democrats don't have much of a sense of fair play.''

He said the campaign does not have the resources to fight the aggressive legal challenge.

Dems Cheat Again

Once again the Dems are trying to cheat to get illegal votes for the upcoming election. Just like bribing homeless with cigarettes in WI, registering dead indians in SD, getting 102% of registered voters in Philly to vote, keeping the polling places open for hours after they close in non Dem strongholds, getting a different person on the ballot in NJ after the deadline, and on and on the Dems can't ever play by the rules when it comes to voting. They know the only way they can win is to cheat. Kevin

Liberal groups supporting Democratic Sen. John Kerry for president have been accused of fraud and of sending felons into people's homes in their efforts to register new voters in Missouri.
The massive drive -- concentrated in the heavily Democratic city of St. Louis -- has registered nearly 25,000 Missouri voters in an effort to take the battleground state from President Bush, who won it in 2000.
"They're going to people's doors, getting their Social Security numbers, birth dates and how many people live in the home," said Woody Cozad, former state Republican Party chairman and board member of the Center for Ethics and the Free Market, a nonprofit group that has raised questions about the voter drive. "That, by itself, could lead to all sorts of problems."
St. Louis election officials rejected for a variety of reasons more than a quarter of the voter-registration forms filed by America Coming Together (ACT) and other liberal groups committed to defeating Mr. Bush in November.
In the past year, the Missouri Secretary of State's office has provided ACT with 106,656 voter-registration cards. During that time, ACT and other groups have turned in 34,683 cards to the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, of which 9,879 have been rejected for various reasons.
The majority were rejected as duplicating existing voter registrants, while others were rejected because the prospective voters were underage, had been convicted of felonies or couldn't be verified.
"In short, by inundating election authorities who are under significant legal and staffing constraints with such large numbers of non-verified applicants, the activities of these groups threatens to undermine the legitimacy of Missouri's electoral system," says the report issued by the Center for Ethics.
Under particular scrutiny are 16,000 voter-registration forms requested by Missouri Department of Corrections employees helping in the voter drive, Mr. Cozad said.