Nov. 5, 2007:
Despite denials, Bush-Cheney planned nuclear attacks on Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria| |
Excerpt: A briefing on the document obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, showed that the document itself was created to flesh out a 2001 Bush administration revision of long-standing nuclear-weapons policy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review. That review was a Defense Department-led attempt to wean nuclear policy off a Cold-War focus on Russia and China, but the shift raised questions about what purpose nuclear forces would serve apart from deterring an attack. In March 2002, leaks indicated that the review would recommend preparations for nuclear attacks against WMD-aspirant states. Arms Control Today pointed out at the time that planning to attack non-nuclear states that were signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty reversed decades of U.S. nuclear policy. |
Sept. 14, 2007:
President's Thursday TV speech had more lies than usual| |
Excerpt: In his speech last night, President Bush made a case for progress in Iraq by citing facts and statistics that at times contradicted recent government reports or his own words.
Comment: Here's a rare but decent effort at fact-checking from the Washington Post, with a few samples of Bush statements from last night at odds with the facts and/or previous Bush statements. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Sept. 3, 2007:
Why did Iraqi army dissolve? Bush can't recall.| |
Excerpt: One of the most heavily criticized actions in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was the decision, barely two months later, to disband the Iraqi army, alienating former soldiers and driving many into the ranks of anti-American militant groups.
But excerpts of a new biography of President Bush show the president saying that he initially wanted to maintain the Iraqi army and, more surprisingly, that he cannot recall why his administration decided to disband it.
Bremer reveals letters establishing that Bush knew in advance of Army dissolution
Excerpt: Mr Bremer, who has been blamed for many of the failures of the post-war occupation, apparently was unwilling to take it any more. He released two letters to the Times to prove his assertion that the White House and the Pentagon knew in advance of his plan to dismantle the military and that they approved.
Comment: I'll let these two intellectual giants argue about who knew what when, but two things are clear: If Bush says something, he's lying. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
August 22, 2007:
Bush lies about Al-Qaeda captures in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Some distortions are so massive and so deliberate as to constitute outright lies. See if you can spot the dishonesty in this line in President Bush's speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars' national convention today:
"U.S. forces have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January." ...
Since the surge began, the U.S. has had between 17,000 and 23,000 Iraqis in custody each month, according to the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index (pdf). Last month, Ned Parker of the Los Angeles Times reported that of the 19,000 detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, only 135 were foreigners -- the most likely indicator of membership in al-Qaeda. |
August 15, 2007:
Former CIA Director Woolsey blatantly lies that Iran could have nuclear weapons in "a few months"| |
Excerpt: “The Iranians continue to work on getting enriched uranium,” said Woolsey. “I’m afraid within, well, at worst, a few months; at best, a few years; they could have a bomb.”
Aug. 2, 2005:
Iran is ten years from nuclear bomb,
say US experts, contradicting Bush
March 31, 2006:
U.N. nuclear chief says Iran is no threat, shouldn't be sanctioned |
August 15, 2007:
Promised "Petraus report on Iraq" will be written by White House| |
Excerpt: Despite Bush’s repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government. |
August 7, 2007:
Bush lies about Iran's "proclaimed desire" for nuclear weapons| |
Excerpt: US President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons -- an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran. "It's up to Iran to prove to the world that they're a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon," he said during a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
But Iran has repeatedly said that its nuclear program, which is widely believed in the West to be cover for an effort to develop atomic weapons, is for civilian purposes.
Comment: The Bush-Cheney administration has been habitually demonizing Iran, announcing over and over again (with little evidence) that Iran is lying when it says it wants nuclear power, not nuclear bombs. But as that almost-certain lie loses traction, here's the new version, a flat-out indisputable lie that Iran "has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon." Nobody who speaks for the Iranian government has never claimed that. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
July 13, 2007:
Bush lies again, linking "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to 9/11| |
Excerpt: In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President George W. Bush employed a stark and ominous defense. "The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq," he said, "were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that's why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home."
It is an argument that Bush has been making with heavy frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.
But his references to Al Qaeda in Iraq, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership. Bush's critics say that he has overstated the Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place.
Comment: Bush lies again, about the thoroughly disproven "link" that doesn't exist between Iraq and 9/11. And even in an article that says pretty plainly that Bush is lying again, the headline has to couch the news in terms of "critics rejecting" Bush's claims -- as if the plain facts are somehow in dispute.
As usual with the Bush administration, the facts are only in dispute with the Bush administration. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
July 12, 2007:
Bush’s claims of ‘satisfactory performance’ in Iraq debunked
| |
Excerpt: The White House achieved its objective of spinning the media’s analysis. The New York Times reports the document as “finding some progress on political and security goals in Iraq.” The Washington Post says progress “has been mixed.” Similarly, the AP finds “mixed progress.”
According to National Security Network (NSN), however, there’s nothing mixed about the situation in Iraq; that is purely White House report spin. The NSN explained, the “benchmarks claimed as ’satisfactory’ … demonstrate minimal progress, not achievement” and “others have been achieved on the surface, but fail to accomplish the overall purpose of the specific measurement.” |
July 2, 2007:
White House lies about Cheney's declassification authority| |
Excerpt: The White House press office and some Bush Administration critics are insisting that the 2003 executive order on classification policy endowed the Vice President with a unique status and classification powers identical to those of the President himself. But that's not what the executive order says. |
June 28, 2007:
Bush plays al Qaida card to bolster support for Iraq policy| |
Excerpt: Facing eroding support for his Iraq policy, even among Republicans, President Bush on Thursday called al Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, an assertion rejected by his administration's senior intelligence analysts.
The reference, in a major speech at the Naval War College that referred to al Qaida at least 27 times, seemed calculated to use lingering outrage over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to bolster support for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, despite evidence that sending more troops hasn't reduced the violence or sped Iraqi government action on key issues. ...
U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops. The group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn't exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn't pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn't controlled by bin Laden or his top aides. |
June 25, 2007:
Bush lies to high school students visiting White House| |
Excerpt: President Bush was presented with a letter Monday signed by 50 high school seniors in the Presidential Scholars program urging a halt to "violations of the human rights" of terror suspects held by the United States.
The White House said Bush had not expected the letter but took a moment to read it and talk with a young woman who handed it to him."The president enjoyed a visit with the students, accepted the letter and upon reading it let the student know that the United States does not torture and that we value human rights," deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. |
June 21, 2007:
Cheney lies about what the Vice Presidency is| |
Excerpt: The Office of the Vice President has asserted that it is not an “entity within the executive branch” and hence is not subject to presidential executive orders. |
June 19, 2007:
White House response to email scandal ("Clinton did it too") is a lie| |
Excerpt: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday released a report documenting how White House officials have regularly used RNC and Bush-Cheney ‘04 e-mail accounts for official government business, in apparent violation of the Hatch Act. The report also found that the RNC has overseen “extensive destruction” of these e-mails, which would likely violate the Presidential Records Act.
During yesterday’s press briefing, White House spokesman Tony Snow brushed aside this direct evidence of potential illegality. His response: Clinton did it too. “Those email accounts were set up on a model based on the prior administration, which had done it the same way, in order to try to avoid Hatch Act violations.” ...
Snow’s statement is false. In 1993, President Clinton’s then-Assistant to the President John Podesta issued a staff memo clearly stating that all administration e-mails dealing with official business had to be “incorporated into an official recordkeeping system,” stressing that no “e-mail document that is a Presidential record should be deleted.” |
May 31, 2007
U.S. detainee abuse (ie, torture of prisoners) was well planned| |
Excerpt: Many of the controversial interrogation tactics used against terror suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo were modeled on techniques the U.S. feared that the Communists themselves might use against captured American troops during the Cold War, according to a little-noticed, highly classified Pentagon report released several days ago. Originally developed as training for elite special forces at Fort Bragg under the "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" program, otherwise known as SERE, tactics such as sleep deprivation, isolation, sexual humiliation, nudity, exposure to extremes of cold and stress positions were part of a carefully monitored survival training program for personnel at risk of capture by Soviet or Chinese forces, all carried out under the supervision of military psychologists.
Comment: The Bush administration has, of course, always lied that torture was conducted by 'rogue' soldiers without official OK. |
May 29, 2007:
Bush routinely, repeatedly lies about public opinion| |
Excerpt: Increasingly isolated on a war that is going badly, Bush has presented his alternative reality in other ways, too. He expresses understanding for the public's dismay over the unrelenting sectarian violence and American losses that have passed 3,400, but then asserts that the public's solution matches his. "A lot of Americans want to know, you know, when?" he said at a Rose Garden news conference Thursday. "When are you going to win?" Also in that session, Bush said: "I recognize there are a handful there, or some, who just say, 'Get out, you know, it's just not worth it. Let's just leave.' I strongly disagree with that attitude. Most Americans do as well."
In fact, polls show Americans do not disagree, and that leaving -- not winning -- is their main goal. |
May 8, 2007:
White House spokesman lies about Kansas disaster preparedness| |
Excerpt: "If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it. … As far as we know, the only thing the governor has requested are FM radios. There have been no requests to the National Guard for heavy equipment. … We are eager to provide what Kansas needs. But again there are also - you also have to go through the process of making the request first."
White House Spokesman Tony Snow’s statements are incorrect. On repeated occasions, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius made clear to the White House that Kansas was dangerously low on National Guard equipment ... |
May 3, 2007:
Bush is lying about al Qaeda in Iraq
by Dana Milbank, Washington Post| |
Excerpt: The man who four years ago admitted "no evidence" of an Iraqi role in the Sept. 11 attacks now finds solid evidence of a role in Iraq by the Sept. 11 hijackers.
"I don't need to remind you who al-Qaeda is," Bush reminded. "Al-Qaeda is the group that plot and planned and trained killers to come and kill people on our soil. The same bunch that is causing havoc in Iraq were the ones who came and murdered our citizens."
This new line of argument would seem to present some difficulty for the White House, and not only because, as the Pentagon inspector general reported last month, al-Qaeda had no ties to Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003. More to the point: If the problem in Iraq isn't sectarian strife, then why is the U.S. military building walls to separate Sunni enclaves from Shiite neighborhoods? |
April 29, 2007:
Rice lies that U.N. inspectors thought Saddam Hussein had WMDs| |
Excerpt: In his new book, former CIA Director George Tenet alleges that there was “never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraq threat,” suggesting the administration had made up its mind to go to war from an early stage.
On CNN’s Late Edition, Condoleezza Rice responded, “We all thought that the intelligence case was strong,” adding that even “the U.N weapons inspectors [thought] Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.” She concluded, “So there’s no blame here of anyone.” |
April 29, 2007:
Seven out of eight "successes" in Iraq are U.S. lies| |
Excerpt: In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle. |
April 27, 2007:
White House spokeswoman lies about illegal meetings| |
Excerpt: During yesterday’s press briefing ... one reporter asked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino whether the briefings were a “White House idea, initially, or was it the agencies,” Perino dodged the question and replied that “the Clinton administration had similar briefings.” ...
Perino’s “Clinton did it too” is wrong. Bush White House officials went to federal agencies on at least 20 occasions and conducted private briefings for large groups of political appointees. They gave presentations focusing on “Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election.” The Hatch Act explicitly prohibits the use of federal property for partisan political purposes.
Doug Sosnik, who served as President Clinton’s Director of Political Affairs and later as Counselor to the President, told ThinkProgress, “We never went to agencies and briefed political appointees.” Sosnik and several other former Clinton administration officials told ThinkProgress that Clinton officials never conducted similar briefings. |
April 25, 2007:
U.S. officials exclude car bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence| |
Excerpt: U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.
Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. |
April 19, 2007:
Training of Iraqi troops no longer matters in U.S. policy| |
Comment: In the never-ending fountain of lies from the Bush-Cheney administration, let's not forget that "training Iraqi troops" was one of the key lies of the Bush-Cheney re-election ... |
April 13, 2007:
Despite denials, Gonzales DID have Republican replacements in the wings| |
Excerpt: A Justice Department e-mail message released on Friday shows that the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales proposed replacement candidates for United States attorneys nearly a year before they were dismissed in December 2006. The department has repeatedly stated that no successors were selected before the dismissals. |
April 12, 2007:
First White House response to
email inquiry was, of course, a lie| |
Excerpt: On March 27, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said that the RNC had been archiving all emails being sent through their accounts. Perino underscored that the archiving had not begun in response to Chairman Henry Waxman’s request to the RNC to preserve all emails, but rather "this has been something that was in place long before that." She added, "The archiving that would have been for any of these -- over the past few years, of emails that had been going back and forth between people that would have these accounts to the outside."
When pressed on how many White House staffers use political email accounts, Perino claimed, "I think it’s a handful, I don’t think it’s a lot."
Comment: As of April 12, the best estimate is that about five-million White House emails were sent on Republican Party servers and subsequently destroyed. |
April 11, 2007:
Bush's "Election Assistance Commission" ignored experts,
made up lies for its "final report"| |
Excerpt: A federal panel responsible for conducting election research played down the findings of experts who concluded last year that there was little voter fraud around the nation, according to a review of the original report obtained by The New York Times.
Instead, the panel, the Election Assistance Commission, issued a report that said the pervasiveness of fraud was open to debate.
The revised version echoes complaints made by Republican politicians, who have long suggested that voter fraud is widespread and justifies the voter identification laws that have been passed in at least two dozen states. |
April 9, 2007:
FDA urges label change from "irradiated" to "pasteurized"| |
Excerpt: The FDA has recently promoted a proposal relaxing the rules regarding how products that have been zapped with radiation to be labeled. The change calls for a shift from the term "irradiated" to "pasteurized."
This proposed rule, according to the Food and Drug Administration, would loosen regulations on labeling for certain meat products, among other foods, that have been treated with radiation, but are not changed material. Material change can refer to wither taste, texture, smell or shelf life.
Comment: Of course, this is a lie, unless you think Louis Pasteur invented irradiation and Marie Curie figured out how to kill bacteria in liquids. |
April 6, 2007:
Cheney again claims Saddam worked with al-Qaeda,
while Defense Dept again says, no, he didn't| |
Excerpt: Vice President Dick Cheney repeated his assertions of al-Qaida links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Thursday as the Defense Department released a report citing more evidence that the prewar government did not cooperate with the terrorist group.
Cheney contended that al-Qaida was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. Others in al-Qaida planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ...
However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion. |
April 3, 2007:
While Bush blasted Pelosi for trip to Syria, White House
arranged trip to Syria for Republican Congressmen| |
Excerpt: the chief of staff to Republican Congressman Joe Pitts, who went to Syria, stated unequivocally that this trip was "done in cooperation with the administration." That would be the very same administration that has spent days and days attacking Pelosi for doing the same thing -- attacks that the big news orgs have eagerly spent a great deal of time and resources amplifying.
FLASHBACK: Hastert traveled abroad, told
foreign leaders not to listen to Clinton
I>Excerpt: In 1997, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a delegation to Colombia at a time when U.S. officials were trying to attach human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs. Hastert specifically encouraged Colombian military officials to "bypass" President Clinton and "communicate directly with Congress." |
file under lies ... April 3, 2007:
Feds lied about interrogation of protesters| |
Excerpt: A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show.
For years, law enforcement authorities suggested it never happened. The FBI and D.C. police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing; police viewed them as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance.
But a civil lawsuit, filed by the protesters, recently unearthed D.C. police logs that confirm the FBI's role in the incident. |
April 3, 2007:
Bush lies about military support for "surge"| |
Excerpt: Bush just spoke to the nation, trying to convince the public to support his Iraq quagmire, and he claimed again that the surge, the escalation, was the idea of his commanders in the field, and he's just following their advice.
In fact, all of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, ALL opposed the surge. |
March 30, 2007:
Bush is, of course, lying about Iraq spending deadline| |
Excerpt: The real deadline for Congress to provide more money for the war in Iraq is well beyond the April 15 deadline cited by President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The Pentagon can take several penny-pinching steps without harming troop readiness or other dire consequences predicted by the Bush administration until Congress actually comes up with the money.
Mid-April is about when $70 billion provided by Congress for the war will run out. After that, Pentagon accountants will move money around in the department's more than half-trillion dollar budget to make sure operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not disrupted. |
March 24, 2007:
Former White House aide defends climate lying| |
Excerpt: A former White House aide has defended editing government reports on global climate change to put them in line with the views of the Bush administration. Phil Cooney, former chief of staff of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality, said this was part of the normal review process. A former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, Cooney now works for oil company ExxonMobil.
Cheney's office involved in
global warming manipulation
Excerpt: ... the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's hearing into Philip Cooney's editing of global warming reports revealed that Cheney's office also played a role. Kevin O'Donovan, an aide in Cheney's office, wrote a memo to Cooney suggesting they try to "reinvigorate debate on the actual climate history of the past thousand years." |
March 19, 2007:
Bush lied about "surge"| |
Excerpt: The surge is now just shy of 30,000 more troops. ... Why did Bush "low-ball," i.e. deceive us about the numbers? My best bet is that he thought if he actually told people we'd be sending 30,000 more troops (and maybe more), Americans would balk. I would have been more impressed, of course, and more inclined to support it. But this is beside the point. The point is: why is it beyond this president to tell the truth to the American people in wartime? |
March 16, 2007:
White House never investigated Plame leak,
says Bush-Cheney Security Chief| |
Excerpt: Dr. James Knodell, director of the Office of Security at the White House, revealed today that to his knowledge the White House has never ordered a probe, report, or sanctions as a result of the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. "I have no knowledge of any investigation in my office," he said. ...
Shortly after the leak was revealed by Novak, President Bush said he wanted an investigation to identify the leaker:
A senior official quoted Bush as saying, "I want to get to the bottom of this," during a daily meeting yesterday morning with a few top aides, including Rove.
Bush: "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is." |
Feb. 27, 2007:
Claim of Iranian weapons in Iraq further debunked| |
Excerpt: Two weeks ago, the Bush administration organized an intelligence briefing for journalists in Iraq to demonstrate that Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi insurgents. According to the anonymous briefers, the weapons -- particularly explosively formed penetrators or E.F.P.s -- were manufactured in Iran, ... a fact that meant direction for the operation was “coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government.” ...
A raid in southern Iraq on Saturday seems to have complicated the case. There, The Wall Street Journal reports, troops "uncovered a makeshift factory used to construct advanced roadside bombs that the U.S. had thought were made only in Iran." ... The New York Times reports ... the finding of "cardboard boxes of the gray plastic PVC tubes used to make the canisters. The boxes appeared to contain shipments of tubes directly from factories in the Middle East, none of them in Iran." |
Feb. 24, 2007:
White House website is scrubbing embarrassing interviews| |
Excerpt: It's difficult to tell how extensive the operation has been, of course, but clearly it has wide dimensions. The most obvious losses from the White House website have been the transcripts of interviews. A little searching for prominent interviews by the Vice President quickly turned up some striking absences. |
Feb. 23, 2007:
Cheney: 'There does not appear to be a consensus' that global warming is 'caused by man'| |
Excerpt: Continuing the Bush administration's long resistance to the science of global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney said today a consensus is lacking on whether global warming is caused by human activity. |
Feb. 12, 2007:
5 ousted U.S. attorneys
received positive job evaluations| |
Excerpt: Although the Bush administration has said that six U.S. attorneys were fired recently in part because of "performance related" issues, at least five of them had received positive job evaluations before they were ordered to step down. |
Feb. 8, 2007:
Bush-Cheney rewriting history, and lying to the public| |
Excerpt: There was an absolutely incredible letter from the White House yesterday concerning Bush's record on climate change. It is signed by Office of Science and Technology Policy director John Marburger and Council on Environmental Quality chair James Connaugton, both of whom, with this letter, are guilty of deceiving the public.
The letter says: "Beginning in June 2001, President Bush has consistently acknowledged climate change is occurring and humans are contributing to the problem." False. I need only point out, yet again, that just last year, Bush claimed there was a debate over whether global warming was "manmade or naturally caused." |
Feb. 3, 2007:
Still no evidence to back Bush-Cheney claims on Iraq| |
Excerpt: Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shiite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill U.S. military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release -- most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad.
Comment: The Bush-Cheney administration has told us that Iran presents some clear and present danger to America -- while every source un-connected to the White House says that just ain't true. |
Jan. 29, 2007:
Cheney unleashes flood of lies in interview| |
Excerpt: Vice President Cheney said yesterday that the administration has achieved 'enormous successes' in Iraq but complained that critics and the media 'are so eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure' that they are undermining U.S. troops in a war zone, striking a far more combative tone than President Bush did in his State of the Union address the night before. |
Jan. 27, 2007:
Bush's four anti-terror successes all fictional| |
Summary: President Bush claimed in his State of the Union speech to have prevented four terrorist plots. All four incidents have been exaggerated to the point that citing them amounts for four lies. |
Jan. 26, 2007:
US military lied about soldiers' deaths| |
Comment: If this was an isolated lie, one public relations officer spinning the facts into something not-so-factual but perhaps a tad more heroic-sounding, maybe you could argue that the lie doesn't matter much. ...
Fact is, America's public conversation on Iraq has been contaminated by countless lies from the White House and military command. So many of official announcements have been just plain bull, any wise observer has to doubt anything this administration says.
And now, Bush, Cheney, and their league of liars are about to attack another nation, based on another set of lies ... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Jan. 22, 2007:
White House lies about Harvard research on stem cells| |
Excerpt: But according to the authors of the Harvard study, the White House has distorted their research. In a letter to Reps. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Mike Castle (R-DE), the authors write:
"We are surprised to see our work on reprogramming adult stem cells used to support arguments that research involving human embryonic stem cells is unnecessary. On the contrary, we assert that human embryonic stem cells hold great promise to find new treatments and cures for diseases. …
"The work that we performed and that was cited in the White House policy report is precisely the type of research that is currently being harmed by the President’s arbitrary limitation on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. …" |
Jan. 13, 2007:
Bush lies to troops about escalation plans| |
Excerpt: Pres. Bush was caught rewriting recent history in a speech he gave Thursday to the troops at Ft. Benning, Georgia, some of whom are preparing for their third deployment to Iraq. |
Jan. 9, 2007:
Snow lied about Bush's "Mission accomplished" speech| |
Excerpt:
I think the public ought to just listen to what the president has to say. You know that the mission accomplished banner was put up by members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the president, on that very speech, said just the opposite, didn't he?
|
Jan. 6, 2007:
Bush claim on tax cuts: Dead wrong| |
Excerpt: President Bush wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday that "it is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues." The claim about fueling record revenue is flat wrong, and it is shocking that the president should persist in making such errors. After all, tax cuts are the central plank of his domestic policy. How can he fail to understand the basic facts about them? |
Dec. 27, 2006:
US says "extraordinary renditions" are over, but the evidence says otherwise| |
Excerpt: The US is telling its overseas allies that it has stopped "extraordinary renditions" and needs their help to empty Guantánamo's prison cells. But human rights groups dispute this assertion and a question mark hangs over 200 "war on terror" detainees who could be held indefinitely without trial. |
Dec. 22, 2006:
Homeland Security Dept admits
breaking privacy laws, lying about it| |
Comment: DHS violated the law and lied about it. And there's nothing in this report to plausibly suggest the violation was anything but intentional.
In the America I'd like to live in, lawbreakers in high political office would be prosecuted. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Dec. 18, 2006:
Iran article is blocked from New York Times VIDEO LINK | |
Excerpt: "The White House intervened in the CIA's pre-publication review process, and has threatened me with criminal prosecution if I publish this op-ed ... because, in the White House's view, that op-ed contains classified information.
"That claim is false. Indeed, I would say that claim is fraudulent. The people making that claim know it is not true.
"The White House is using the rubric of protecting classified information, not to protect classified information, but to limit the dissemination of the views of someone who is very critical of their approact to Iran policy." |
Nov. 11, 2006:
Bush lied about Rumsfeld, Washington Post lets it slide| |
Excerpt: There can be no reasonable dispute about this, since the President at his Press Conference not only admitted lying when he told the reporters that Rumsfeld would stay, but he even went on to explain his reasons for lying ("the reason why is I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign. And so the only way to answer that question and to get you on to another question was to give you that answer"). The decision was clearly a fait accompli before the election, as the President himself said: "win or lose, Bob Gates was going to become the nominee." |
Nov. 3, 2006:
Cheney: 'Full Speed Ahead' on Iraq| |
Excerpt: "We've got the basic strategy right," Cheney told George Stephanopoulos in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on This Week.
Comment: Nobody knows where Bush-Cheney's lies end and the insanity begins ...
Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Oct. 22, 2006:
Bush lies: "We've never been 'stay the course'"
Oct. 20, 2006:
Cheney still lying about Iraq-Al Qaeda link| |
Excerpt: Just last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee -- chaired by Bush-ally Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) -- concluded that there was absolutely no relationship between Saddam Hussein and the late al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Nevertheless, in an interview with a South Bend, Indiana television station yesterday, Vice President Cheney falsely asserted that Zarqawi was proof of a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. |
Sept. 29, 2006:
President Bush has something to say about torture| |
Excerpt: We found this long-forgotten press release at the White House website on September 29, 2006 -- the day the President is expected to sign the new law ending eight hundred years of habeas corpus, authorizing torture on the President's say-so, and retroactively legalizing torture previously authorized by the despicable President of the United States.
The text of the press release, probably never even read and certainly never comprehended by George W. Bush, is credited as a "statement by the President."
The illustrations did not come from the White House website, but what's illustrated certainly did.
We republish Bush's old press release as a tribute to the nation America could be, if men like Bush were imprisoned instead of President, and because we expect this "statement by the President" won't remain on the White House website much longer. |
Report finds 485 contacts between crooked lobbyist and White House| |
Excerpt: A bipartisan Congressional report documents hundreds of contacts between White House officials and the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partners, including at least 10 direct contacts between Mr. Abramoff and Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist.
The House Government Reform Committee report, based on e-mail messages and other records subpoenaed from Mr. Abramoff's lobbying firm, found 485 contacts between Mr. Abramoff's lobbying team and White House officials from 2001 to 2004, including 82 with Mr. Rove's office.
Comment: And of course, the White House lied about it.
Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK
White House Press Conference, 1/17/2006:
Question: Can you be more specific about [Jack Abramoff's] contacts with the senior staff? You said you were going to get back to us on that. Can you give us --
Press Secretary Scott McClellan: I did check. There were a few staff-level meetings. As I indicated there were -- I think I previously indicated that he attended three Hanukkah receptions at the White House. It is actually only two Hanukkah receptions that he attended.
White House Press Conference, 1/17/2006:
Reporter's question: why are you guys resistant to open this here? What is there to hide, or why not just say, here are the contacts he had, here are the issues he talked about when he came to the White House, here are the people --
Press Secretary Scott McClellan: Well, I did do a check, and I indicated to you exactly what I just told you. I indicated to you that there were a few staff-level meetings that he attended at least -- he attended two holiday receptions, in 2001 and 2002. |
Sept. 15, 2006:
Bush rewrites history on Zarqawi statements| |
Excerpt: During today's press conference, ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz asked Bush why he continues to say Saddam "had relations with Zarqawi," despite the Senate Intelligence Report findings that Hussein "did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi." Bush replied: "I never said there was an operational relationship."
In fact, Bush has repeatedly asserted that Saddam "harbored" and "provided safe-haven" to Zarqawi... |
Sept. 14, 2006:
UN says US report on Iran nuclear program is a big lie| |
Excerpt: U.N. inspectors investigating Iran's nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran's capabilities, calling parts of the document "outrageous and dishonest" and offering evidence to refute its central claims.
Comment: The US Congress is LYING to make the case that we have to attack Iran, now, for the love of Pete.
The House report says that Iran is producing weapons-grade enriched uranium, but the UN's nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, says that's a giant big fat lie.
The rat bastards in the Republican Party, after they've completely destroyed our military AND our credibility on the last lie-based war, are now actually trying to LIE THIS COUNTRY INTO ANOTHER DAMN WAR!
Peter Hoekstra's (R-MI) pants are COMPLETELY ON FIRE! Experts are saying that this is just like before Iraq, which ALSO DIDN'T HAVE A NUCLEAR PROGRAM!
Dagnaggit, these people are starting to REALLY PISS ME OFF!!! Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK |
Sept. 11, 2006:
Military lied about Iraqi deaths| |
Excerpt: The U.S. military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday.
The decision to include only victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution, usually at the hands of death squads, allowed U.S. officials to argue that a security crackdown that began in the capital August 7 had more than halved the city's murder rate.
But the types of slayings, including suicide bombings, that the U.S. excluded from the category of "murder" were not made explicit at the time. That led to confusion after Iraqi Health Ministry figures showed that 1,536 people died violently in and around Baghdad in August, nearly the same number as in July. |
Sept. 11, 2006:
Government pays for insurance policies to shield CIA torturers from court verdicts| |
Excerpt: CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program.
Comment: How could any American read this news and not feel ashamed, outraged?
Government-reimbursed insurance shields CIA employees from paying for their crimes — including "abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."
There's only one reason the CIA would offer reimbursement for such policies and, as this article reports, encourage its officers to sign up. There's only one reason a CIA officer would want this kind of insurance:
If their actions are brought to the light of day, it's likely that what they've done and what they're doing will be found illegal.
This is shameful, despicable on how many different levels?
Federal employees are paid to torture, to violate human rights, American law, and the Geneva Conventions...
... And the Bush-Cheney administration authorized it, but lies about it constantly ("We don't torture," as Bush himself said again last week, while pushing for new laws shielding torturers from prosecution)...
... And little-known government-backed insurance policies are being pushed, so government workers who torture for a living needn't worry about paying any civil damages for their illegal acts...
Is this the America Tom Jefferson and Ben Franklin and George Washington fought to establish?
Or is this the tyranny they fought against? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Sept. 6, 2006:
Federal and local agencies lied, covered up Ground Zero contamination
70% of 9/11 rescue workers have respiratory problems| |
Excerpt: Five years after Sept. 11, seven out of 10 first responders and workers who toiled at Ground Zero suffer from chronic lung ailments that probably will be lifelong, doctors said yesterday in announcing the largest-ever study of 9/11 health effects... Doctors at Mount Sinai also said they expect to find cancer among the study's participants in coming years.
Comment: It would be an appropriate gesture, commemorating five years since September 11, 2001, to finally, finally take care of the rescue workers.
Appropriate, but unlikely.
The Bush-Cheney administration uses the rescue workers' heroism for photo ops and propaganda, but when it comes to the heroes' health, White House policy is, You're screwed. Helen & Harry Highwater PERMANENT LINK |
Aug. 29, 2006:
Terrorists are manipulating US media, says Rumsfeld| |
Excerpt: "What bothers me the most is how clever the enemy is," he continued, launching an extensive broadside at Islamic extremist groups which he said are trying to undermine Western support for the war on terror.
"They are actively manipulating the media in this country" by, for example, falsely blaming U.S. troops for civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
Comment: Will any American reporter challenge Rumsfeld's absolutely delusional propaganda?
He names no names, cites no examples, offers no evidence because, of course, anyone who's brighter than a dustmop knows "Islamic extremist groups" have no viable access to American media.
But pathological liars in the Bush administration can say anything they wish, even outrageous and obvious lies like this, knowing the US media will report it virtually without question. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
Aug. 24, 2006:
Republicans pressure intelligence agencies to justify attack on Iran| |
Excerpt: Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.
Comment: This news got buried on a Friday at the end of summer, but save it to your hard drives, everyone. Keep it in the same file with the stories from a few months back about the unanimous consensus that Iran is a decade away from a nuclear weapon.
I have a sneaking suspicion that after the elections are out of the way, the crazies in charge are actually going to try to lie us into yet another war. Madeline Zane PERMANENT LINK
Comment: Because really, who are you going to trust - intelligence officers who do this kind of work for a living and whose careers depend on getting their facts right...
Or Republican politicians whose careers hang in the balance of the next election? Rebecca PERMANENT LINK
|
July 28, 2006:
Bush executive order let EPA bury info on 9/11 health hazards| |
Excerpt: With New Yorkers already fuming about reports that the feds downplayed the danger of Ground Zero dust, the White House gave EPA chief Christie Whitman the power to bury embarrassing documents by classifying them "secret."
"I hereby designate the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to classify information originally as 'Secret,'" states the executive order, which was signed by President Bush on May 6, 2002. |
July 14, 2006:
Are you stupid enough to believe one word from Bush & Cheney?
by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
| |
Excerpt: With the exception of the mentally handicapped and the chronically un-informed, nobody in the world is stupid enough to believe that Bush and Cheney are men of honor steering America's future to the best of their abilities. |
July 7, 2006:
Republican Senator who submitted phony transcript
for Congressional Record to mislead Supreme Court
says "no big deal," he and others have done it before| |
Comment: They've gotten away with so many lies for so long, Republicans can now exist only in an environment of lies.
So hey, why not make up a phony floor debate in the Senate, submit it to the Congressional Record, and then reference it in Supreme Court briefs as evidence of legislative intent? Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
June 30, 2006:
Newspaper finds defense witnesses for Guantanamo
prisoner, though US said they couldn't be found| |
Comment: Isn't it obvious, as the lies continue, that virtually everything Bush & Cheney have announced about the 'war on terror' is an un-ending parade of blatant lies?
... Today they're lying to keep a man in prison, to prevent him from having a fair trial. Tomorrow they could be lying to imprison you. Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
June 29, 2006:
Bush's National Guard to the Mexican border? Another lie.| |
Excerpt: The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half of the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June.
As of Thursday, the next-to-last day of the month, fewer than 1,000 troops were in place, according to military officials in the four border states of Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. |
June 24, 2006:
CIA officer edited lies out of Powell's UN
speech, but someone put them back in| |
Excerpt: In late January 2003, as Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to argue the Bush administration's case against Iraq at the United Nations, veteran CIA officer Tyler Drumheller sat down with a classified draft of Powell's speech to look for errors. He found a whopper: a claim about mobile biological labs built by Iraq for germ warfare. Drumheller instantly recognized the source, an Iraqi defector suspected of being mentally unstable and a liar. The CIA officer took his pen, he recounted in an interview, and crossed out the whole paragraph. A few days later, the lines were back in the speech. |
June 18, 2006:
Memo from US Embassy in Iraq details abductions, threats to women's rights, and "ethnic cleansing"| |
Comment: This memo from the US embassy in Baghdad might be worth remembering, the next time lying Republicans and TV propagandacasters tell you things are looking up in Iraq, or President Bush claims that "freedom is on the march." Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
June 13, 2006:
White House lied to public, but Rove saved his hide by coming clean to FBI| |
Comment: This is probably the end of this entirely sordid episode, and the AP's reporter has summed things up with what seems to me a fairly fair recap -- with one glaring but utterly ordinary exception:
Like virtually all mainstream reporters, AP's Pete Yost is congenitally incapable of typing the words "lie," "lied," or "liar" when referring to anyone in the White House.
So we'll help... Helen & Harry PERMANENT LINK |
June 10, 2006:
NASA budget eliminates satellites' ability to monitor global climate change| |
Comment: In a word, bullcrap. This isn't about budget priorities, it's about the Bush-Cheney-rightwing war against any science (any facts, any intelligence) that disputes the Bush administration's Cro-Magnon outlook on everything. Helen & Harry LINK
|
May 11, 2006:
Bush lied repeatedly about scope of NSA spying on Americans| |
Comment: It is not just international communications. The program includes calls placed within the United States. They are putting into the database every call made in the US.
... They have been lying to us about this, over and over and over again. They've been lying to us about it, and they've been lying to Congress about it. Rachel Maddow LINK |
May 8, 2006:
Rumsfeld denies making claims Iraq had WMDs| |
Excerpt: The Pentagon chief denied he had lied and said he had relied on official intelligence reports about Saddam's weapons.
His questioner persisted: "You said you knew where they were."
Rumsfeld: "I did not. I said I knew where 'suspect' sites were."
The record shows that in the weeks preceding the war, Rumsfeld flatly claimed to know the whereabouts of Saddam's WMD arsenal.
On March 30, 2003, 11 days into the war, Rumsfeld was asked in an ABC News interview if he was surprised that American forces had not yet found any weapons of mass destruction.
"Not at all," Rumsfeld said, according to an official Pentagon transcript. "The area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." |
April 27, 2006:
US officials are still lying about suicide attempts at Guantanamo prison
April 25, 2006:
Bush does what he criticized Clinton for doing| |
Excerpt: In September 2000, then-Gov. George W. Bush criticized President Clinton for proposing to use the strategic oil reserve in response to high prices:
"The Strategic Reserve is an insurance policy meant for a sudden disruption of our energy supply or for war. Strategic Reserve should not be used as an attempt to drive down oil prices right before an election. It should not be used for short-term political gain at the cost of long-term national security."
Today, Bush did precisely what he criticized President Clinton for five-and-a-half years ago. |
April 14, 2006:
George W Bush is a liar
by Robert Parry, Consortium News| |
Comment: This is very reasonable, calm, dispassionate and interesting. It recounts evidence conclusively showing that the title is true. Zebra LINK |
April 13, 2006:
Bush administration goes on-line with Saddam-al Qaeda lies
| |
Salon requires non-subscribers to view a brief advertisement Excerpt: Lacking evidence of a real-world link between Saddam and the perpetrators of 9/11, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by Bush appointee John Negroponte, has apparently decided to create one in cyberspace -- by seeding its new online Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents archive with suggestive jihadist materials, and by linking the site to an entirely unrelated database of al-Qaida materials.
... Strikingly, many of the interlopers share some key characteristics: Their origins trace to al-Qaida or other jihadist groups, they frequently involve unconventional weapons -- and they have nothing at all to do with either Saddam's regime or prewar Iraq. Also striking is their inclusion in an archive purportedly dedicated to captured Iraqi documents specifically from the Saddam regime; U.S. forces surely captured a wealth of other materials in Iraq that have nothing to do with the regime and that are not included in the archive. The fact that the only such relics to worm their way into the Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents focus on al-Qaida, the jihadist fringe and unconventional weapons strongly suggests an attempt to reinforce the Bush administration's prewar claim of ties between a WMD-hungry Saddam and al-Qaida terrorists. |
April 12, 2006:
Bush-Cheney pushed notion of banned Iraqi mobile "biological laboratories." despite evidence to contrary| |
Excerpt: The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. |
April 10, 2006:
"US home audience" is target of American propaganda about al Qaeda leader Zarqawi
April 9, 2006:
Nothing but lies behind "war on teror"
by Robyn E. Blumner, St. Petersburg Times
April 7, 2006:
Bush can tap domestic calls without warrants too, says Attorney General
April 6, 2006:
Libby's testimony: Bush personally authorized
leaking classified information to help 'sell' war| |
Excerpt: Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case. |
March 27, 2006:
Proof yet again, Bush lied to lead USA to war on Iraq| |
Excerpt: The Times article reviews for the first time the full text of a confidential memo of a two-hour meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair on Jan. 31, 2003. The memo makes clear that the White House was bent on attacking Iraq two months later no matter what, "even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons," writes Don Van Natta, Jr. |
March 22, 2006:
Bush lies again: Says he never linked 9/11 to Iraq| |
Excerpt: In fact, Bush did claim such a connection existed, often generally and specifically in a letter to Congress at the start of the war. |
March 18, 2006:
Bush using straw-man arguments in speeches| |
Excerpt: "It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people. All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff." |
March 14, 2006:
Bush blames Iran for Iraqi resistance ...
... but there's no proof of Iran's involvement, says Chair of US Joint Chiefs
March 10, 2006:
Former Bush domestic policy advisor charged in shoplifting/refund scam| |
Comment: When he quit his high-level White House position in February, the Bush-Cheney administration claimed that Dr Allen was leaving "to spend more time with his family." In reality, he had been arrested a month earlier, for "refund fraud" -- shoplifting.
There is apparently nothing so trivial that the Bush-Cheney White House won't lie about it.
H&HH LINK |
March 9, 2006:
Rumsfeld's 'history lesson' is a collection of lies
by Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post
March 7, 2006:
Poll shows Americans expect civil war in Iraq, but
press is "exaggerating" violence, Rumsfeld claims
March 5, 2006:
Lies, lies, and also lies from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
by The Sailor, Vidiot Speak| |
Excerpt: "No matter where you look at [Iraq's] military, their police, their society things are much better this year than they were last." |
March 3, 2006:
Rice lied, of course, when she said Hamas victory was unexpected| |
Excerpt: "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by Hamas' strong showing," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, referring to the landslide victory of the Islamic Hamas party in the January 25 Palestinian elections. Hamas won 76 out of 132 seats in the Palestinian legislature, compared to 43 seats for the ruling Fatah party.
... But despite Secretary Rice's odd protestations, no one did a better job of tracking the growing popularity of Hamas than the State Department's own intelligence analysts.
"When the parties [Hamas and Fatah] are directly compared, likely voters tend to see Hamas as more qualified to clean up corruption, resist occupation, and uphold societal values," the analysts reported in a January 19, 2006, pre-election assessment obtained by Secrecy News. |
March 2, 2006:
Bush knew, two months before attack on Iraq, Saddam posed no threat
March 2, 2006:
No questions asked by Bush in video of pre-hurricane briefing| |
Comment: The video is quite incriminating, and shows yet again that the President was lying when he said he hadn't been warned. Of course, the Republicans who control Congress wouldn't care, even if the video shows Bush flipping the Gulf Coast the finger and announcing, "I hope thousands die." H&HH LINK |
March 1, 2006:
Bush lied about UAE port company being cleared of links to terrorism| |
Excerpt: "There was no real investigation conducted during the 30-day period," Rep Peter King (R-New York), who has been a vocal critic of the deal, told CNN. "I can't emphasize this enough." |
Feb. 26, 2006:
White House lied about Scottish cop's injuries from Bush bicycle crash| |
Excerpt: John Scott, a human rights lawyer, said: "There's certainly enough in this account for a charge of careless driving. Anyone else would have been warned for dangerous driving.
"I have had clients who have been charged with assaulting a police officer for less than this. The issue of how long the police officer was out of action for is also important. He was away from work for 14 weeks, and that would normally be very significant in a case like this."
According to day-after press reports on July 7th, Bush blamed wet pavement and high speed for the fall. "We were flying," Bush said at a press conference in Gleneagles.
Comment: In reality, Bush carelessly took his hands off the bike's handlebars, causing the accident, and injuring a policeman so seriously he missed more than three months' work.
There is no matter so trivial that the Bush administration won't lie about it. H&HH LINK
... None of the coverage at the time suggested the constable was hurt beyond the "minor" injury, and the incident was soon forgotten. |
Feb. 24, 2006:
Flashback:US gov't experts debunk evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons program| |
Comment: We told you to keep this one in your bookmarks. It's a Washington Post article from 6 months ago, saying Iran is ten years away from having its first nuclear weapons. We've heard no facts to contradict it, just posturing and fear-mongering from the usual death merchants. Madeline Zane LINK |
Feb. 21, 2006:
Rumsfeld was "mistaken" when he said US propaganda in Iraqi press had stopped
Feb. 9, 2006:
Abramoff says he met Bush "almost a dozen" times| |
Excerpt: Jack Abramoff said in correspondence made public on Thursday that President Bush met him "almost a dozen" times, disputing White House claims Bush did not know the former lobbyist at the center of a corruption scandal. |
Feb. 4, 2006:
NASA scientists balk at political edicts from Bush-appointed crony with no science background
Feb. 1, 2006:
Officials now say Bush's "State of the Union" statement about cutting Mid-East oil dependence was pure fiction| |
Excerpt: One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
... "This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.
Comment: Sure ... an example of LYING! Madeline Zane LINK |
Jan. 31, 2006:
Attorney General Gonzales lied under oath about wiretapping program during confirmation hearing
Jan. 27, 2006:
Bush administration response to spying scandal: Lies, lies, and more lies
Jan. 26, 2006:
Bush publicly opposed spying on Americans ... while secretly ordering it
Jan. 24, 2006:
White House got detailed warnings days before Hurricane Katrina hit
Jan. 22, 2006:
'Bizarre,' says Pakistan's Prime Minister of CIA claims that attack killed al Qaeda leaders| |
Excerpt: "The area does see movement of people from across the border. But we have not found one body or one shred of evidence that these people were there." |
Jan. 18, 2006:
White House won't release details of bribemeister Abramoff's visits| |
Excerpt: According to Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Abramoff had "a few" such meetings. But the spokesman won't say when or with whom. Nor will he say which interests Abramoff was representing -- or how he got access to the White House.
Comment: Predictably, McClellan's line about "a few" meetings was yet another lie (see below). H&HH LINK
Abramoff had hundreds of White House meetings
Excerpt: The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Abramoff and his associates had nearly 200 contacts with the White House during Bush's first 10 months in office. |
Jan. 17, 2006:
Three more rescue workers die of 9/11 air pollution poisoning
Jan. 17, 2006:
White House smear distorts facts of legal Clinton-Gore search
Jan. 15, 2006:
Republicans lie about Knight-Ridder's Alito coverage
by Clark Hoyt, Knight-Ridder Newspapers| |
Excerpt: The controversy erupted again last week at Alito's confirmation hearings. After Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., referred to the Knight Ridder story, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., introduced a critique of the story by the Republican staff of the Judiciary Committee into the record. Kyl said that the story, "has, to my understanding, been rather completely discredited." The first paragraph of the Republican critique, however, said that the story was based on "dozens" of Alito's opinions, creating the false impression that Henderson and Mintz didn't examine the judge's entire body of published work.
The Republican National Committee circulated a blistering personal attack on Henderson to some reporters, taking quotes out of context in an attempt to portray him as biased.
The RNC said Henderson "admitted he was previously an editorial writer," as though that part of a distinguished reporter's career was a secret that he'd been trying to hide. The RNC statement linked Henderson to editorials he didn't write.
This hysteria over a carefully researched article that documents the obvious -- that Samuel Alito is a judicial conservative -- is the latest example of a disturbing trend of attacking the messenger instead of debating difficult issues.
Fact-based reporting is the lifeblood of a democracy. It gives people shared information on which to make political choices. But as people in new democracies risk their lives to gather such information, in this country fact-based reporting is under more relentless assault than at any time in my more than 40 years in Washington. |
Jan. 13, 2006:
Bush authorized domestic spying before 9/11| |
Excerpt: According to a declassified document, the National Security Agency's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president, and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups. |
Jan. 11, 2006:
Right-wingers are lying about judge's light sentence for child rapist
Jan. 2, 2006:
with dots connected by Madeline Zane
Dec. 30, 2005:
Pentagon claims policy of paying for propaganda is legal
Dec. 28, 2005:
'Swift Boat'-esque group buys TV ads to bolster Bush-Cheney's Iraq lies
Dec. 27 2005:
Bush lie-check: Bush got the FISA changes he asked for after 9/11
Dec. 21, 2005:
Officials say Bush's illegal wiretap program unnecessary, court OK is easy to get| |
Excerpt: "It's total hubris. It's arrogance by the people doing this," said a second senior U.S. counter-terrorism official. "This is a 24-hour thing, and you can get these kinds of warrants immediately. I think they are just being lazy." |
Dec. 20, 2005:
"Dr Germ," "Chemical Sally," and other
"deck-of-cards" Iraqis released from prison
Dec. 16, 2005:
Bush ordered NSA to spy without warrants in US
Dec. 10, 2005:
US manufactured Iraq • al Qaeda connection by torturing "informant" until he said what they wanted
Dec. 10, 2005:
Pentagon vastly under-reporting war injuries| |
Salon requires non-subscribers to view a brief advertisement Excerpt: But by Dec. 8, 2005, the military had evacuated another 25,289 service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses not caused directly by enemy bullets or bombs, according to the U.S. Transportation Command. That statistic includes everything from serious injuries in Humvee wrecks or other accidents to more routine illnesses that could be unrelated to field battles.
Yet those service members are not included in the Pentagon's casualty reports. That's odd. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a casualty as "a military person lost through death, wounds, injury, sickness, internment or capture or through being missing in action."
"We don't do Webster's," Jim Turner, a Pentagon spokesman told me in 2004 as I was reporting on counting casualties. In a written statement, the Department of Defense told me that the casualty reports describe casualties to fit the "understanding of the average newspaper reader." |
Dec. 7, 2005:
Pentagon lied to Congress about dangers of anthrax vaccination
Dec. 6, 2005:
Bush administration objects to media describing Alito |
