Any efforts to keep the discussion open and moving forward is a welcome addition to the dialogue in my opinion.
Hotbed Media

wow you ppl need to get a life....

It needs to be made absolutely clear that the woman who calls herself "Katie McGrath" is NOT the wife of executive producer JJ Abrams. All comments by her should have NO CONNECTION to JJ Abrams either in Washington Post or in any other media outlet. All comments by "Katie McGrath" either in this or other articles should be disregarded. All connections of Katie McGrath to JJ Abrams should be deleted!

zouk is a coward and a fascist

Jeff, when people said Petraeus was lying, it was based on previous statements he had made. It wasn't based on expectations of what he might say during his testimony. MoveOn has a detailed report on the facts and figures cited by Petraeus and how they contradict facts as reported by other sources. This information was actually in their famous ad, if you're capable of reading past the headline to find it.

You say that Congress lacks "respect" because they dare to question a general. Do you have any idea how the laws of this country work? Oversight of military affairs is part of Congress' job. Sometimes that involves questioning generals. Sometimes it even involves asking tough questions, and calling the generals out if they evade or lie in response. And yes, Congress is even allowed to question lifelong soldiers and "dedicated Americans" in that way.

And speaking of respect, how about you get some respect for this nation's government? You believe that several of the country's top elected officials are siding with terrorists. How does that show respect for this country?

First of all, whomever is posting these long articles is an idiot.
No one bothers to read them, making your point lost. Link, don't cut and paste.
More importantly - Rufus....
O'Reilly didn't encourage violence by asking people to stand up to other people. Stop pretending he is the problem and take a moment to actually listen to what the man has to say. I don't agree with him all the time, but I find that what he says tends to make some sense.
That's the big problem with hardcore liberals -
you simply aren't willing to listen to anything. You've had your mind made up for you by others who refuse to listen and that's it! What kind of person is so inflexible and knowledgeable that they can't LISTEN to another person with a different opinion?
Personally, I don't have a problem with your opinion, but I am sick and tired of this endemic preconceived notions.
Before Petraeus even gave his report, democrats on the hill already made preemptive statements about what they thought he was going to say!
Before the man spoke, leftists had already decided he was lying!
Petraeus is a good man, a lifetime soldier, and a dedicated American. He is passionate about his job and has done it with honor. How dare ANY of you point fingers at him and accuse him of anything?
The one thing that Petraeus and anyone who has served knows is that honor, duty, and country are more than just slogans - they are part of their being.
Moveon.org and the far left don't understand those ideals.
Is it any wonder that Bin Laden's rhetoric sounds EXACTLY the same as Reid, Pelosi, Durbin, and moveon.org?
They are all on the same side, which is against America.
And I am not surprised Petraeus' report wasn't well received. Unlike most people, I actually paid attention and watched what he had to say. I read the transcripts.
Politicians were given a chance to emote about their ill informed opinions and grandstand, while the General was cut off due to time restrictions.
I don't like America right now, but it isn't because I disagree with policy or the road we are taking - I am tired of hearing we can't win. I am tired of hearing that a Senator, who sits in an air conditioned office on the hill all day, knows better than a commanding officer who has boots on the ground and looks his soldiers square in the eye.
It's time to bring the concept of respect back to Congress.

hollywood is weak and scared in the face of islam

"Divide and Conquer"........maybe the polical elitist's are right after all - "We the People", are too stupid to pick our leaders in government. As we continue to take sides in the "right" vs. "left" argument of distraction, the ruling polical class continue to screw the general public on a daily basis - and we keep voting these clowns into office. Think about it folks, we have been hearing the same polical arguments for decades, with the same canned political solutions from the "left" and the "right". The Federal Government continues to grow at an alarming pace, but America's problem's never get solved, we just throw more money at the problems, then are told that "if it weren't for the Dems" or "if it weren't for the Repub's, we wouldn't have all these problems". Funny how it works, same problems, different decade. Nothing ever gets solved or fixed. And as long as "We, the People" continue to lap up the nonsense the politicians feed us and fight amongst ourselves, "We, the People" are a conqured nation, fractured, and not one in charge of ourselves. WAKE THE HELL UP AMERICA!

Right-

Because Farenheit 9/11 worked do well for them!

Chris Moore is a dunce !

It is amazing to me how the left leaning folks on here complain about Fox News. Sure they have their moments of being partial but don't you think the three majors, comedy central, MSNBC, etc are not as partial as well? If you say no then you truly have your head in the sand and there is no reason to listen to your views here. What really frustrates you guys is the fact a C student has made fools of the Democratic party, who are elitist by the way and feel they truly are the most intelligent group of people out there, yet at every turn he makes them look like fools (Elitist - I mean look at Al Gore telling us not to burn fuel but he burns 20 times more than the average person, do you think he will ever stop? No, he just wants you to.). By the way the American public, supported by polls, support and trust the General to make the decisions on the war compared to their trust of both Congress and the President, so where do we go from here? We stay in Iraq for several more years, build bases in Iraq so we can do quick strikes in the region for the next three generations and help offset the China and Russian alliance that has been fostered over the last several years in the region.

Brilliant! We need to hear what Hollywood, that bastion of intellectual and refined cultural repository has to offer in the way of insightful daily political analysis, so they may provide a guiding light to us mare mortals. Voices like Sarandon, Penn, Sheen, Danson, Kucinich, Soros, Dixie Chiclets... As well as all those other Democratic talking point outlets such as NY Times, LA Times, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, MoveOn.org... they and many more have been silenced by that ubiquitous 'right wing conspiracy.' Now we can say, we are truly saved, thank you Hollywood. Brilliant!

A huge mistake, Hollywood can't craft messages with mass appeal for the average citizen.

They have no idea how we think.

When you hang around the same thinking type of crowd how can one come up with a different message to appeal to those who work hard for a living?

they ask hollywood to craft messages to appeal to average americans. typical.

Maybe if we're real nice & give Isreal to the Arabs, they'll not try to convert us Infildels to Islam?
With that said, let me stick my head in the sand.

This being the anniversary of 9/11, I can tell you that Hollywood was going to make money off it and make the terrorists look good. Low and behold, Fahrenheit 9/11. Stupid title made by and for people who never read or understood what Fahrenheit 451 was about. IT was about people staring blindly at large screens and believing whatever they saw on it, not looking for the facts.

But hey, let's forget that. Why not make a cartoony film about a terrorist named Mohammed that took over all of North Africa hundreds of years ago.

Republicans listen to talk radio and watch Fox News. This means that the republicans discuss and debate by means of speaking and listening.

Democrats control media and hollywood. This means they dissertate through movies, MTV, sit-coms, comedy central, hip-hop, newspapers, etc.

Republicans disco

The democrats discourse is through

Hey Rufus, or is it Dufus...
Number one, learn to spell. You far left crackheads are all the same: you want to change this country and turn it into a socialist European state. It's no secret anymore, you are quite open about it. After reading your ridiculous postings one thing is painfully clear: Your God is not the same one that guided our forefather's. Your God is Moveon.Org... the great masterbator of the masses. Vomit up the lard, you asses, and give us back our country!

This is great. The libs are going to wear everyone out with their vitriol (just as with the global warming vitriol).

The liberal politics and the environmental crap is going to be ignored.

So, who's going to be playing the role of Josef Göbbels in this company? Seriously? Have we really come to this?

(P.S. I would think this was an equally bad idea if the RNC was teaming up with Hollywood to make propaganda films.)

Hollywood can't make decent movies to get people to go out. I'm waiting for one to blow my 7 bucks at a matinee. can't find one worth it.

I have always been a movie buff; but it is getting so that so many movie actors are involved in smearing our country and those who defend it, I just can't watch many of the films in theaters these days without getting sick to my stomach. These people and the politician that urge them on are traitors. When will we be delivered from such as these?

Well, nobody on the right should be worried. All those projects that were mentioned stink. American Pie, Oceans Twelve, Party of Five, and Charlie's Angels? Thank goodness nobody with actual talent is involved.

You people are a bunch of idiots

"Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities."

You said it JS. What a sad state of affairs when we have actual living americans who are activily and publicly agreeing with those who are right NOW KILLING our guys and gals in our defense. And yeah, Hillary and Kerry and all the other hypocrites all said he had WMD with the UN after 12 resolutions. So they blame Bush who has the "MANBALLS" do something about it. Being a liberal really is a sickness. But they and the terrorists are buddies now, so I guess they will end up with each other in the end. I hope not in control of our country. God help us.

Give Them Money: You should be ashamed. Rather than blaming the poor for not being able to get a "real" full time job, let us look at the reasons why they have no hope of getting a full time job at a decent living wage:
1. Businesses outsource low skill labour whrever possible outside the US.
2. Businesses wherever they can get away with it hire undocumented illegal workers who will work for a fraction of the minimum hourly wage and no benefits thereby reducing the average prevailing wage of low skilled jobs in an area to unsupportable levels.
3. Businesses hire legal guest workers under H-1B programs who will work for a lower salary and reduced benefits thereby making such jobs not an option.
4. Cost of trade schools and college have made it virtually impossible for the working poor to be able to attend as pell grants and low interest college loan funding are at historically low levels. Plus the fact if you are working poor, you probably went through public education system that did not properly prepare you to pass a college/trade school entrance exam.
--Your joke was unappareciated. Do you always blame the underdog?

Geez, a typo.. "These days, you CAN'T define the difference in what out enemies say and the democrat party."

xfiler93..

Couldnt agree with you more. These days, you can define the difference in what out enemies say and the democrat party.

I am so tired of hearing day after day that "oh, its so bad, we should just get out".. or "there were no WMDS"...

2 points I would like to elaborate on.. there were/are WMDS.. we found some.. Saddam used some.. Presidents for 20 years have been saying they existed and when we finally get a Prez with the gonads to do something about it.. America shrivels up. Oh my god.. he had 20 years to move the WMDS whereever he wanted to!

Last point... we started this war.. 80%+ of America was behind Bush but now cause we are lazy and fat.. we can't hack it. You can kill Babies with your abortions as long as you want.. but God forbid soldiers dying for a great cause.. You people (Liberals) make me sick. Tell us to go "green".. but not for the ELITEST libs.. Hypocrites, Liars and Cowards.

Wow, good to see all you lefties saying pretty much what our enemies are saying. Good to see you guys are step by step in league with their talking points too!! When they kill more of us, good to know that they did it with your help in betraying and degrading our country and our troops. Liberals....they stand for and own defeat and treason. Keep up the good work, our enemies overseas are counting on you guys.

If this has anything at all to do with J.J. Abrams it will be all hype and fury signifying nothing.

Here's a novel American idea: remove the politics, remove the blatant propaganda feeding by Hollywood and the media, and focus the discussions on the best policies for America.

Lee S. Shulman from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has a piece out entitled "Educating for Democracy" that really gets to the heart of the matter (http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives).

Controling communications, airing opinion as fact, and silencing opposing views is not the freedom that our forefathers fought for. If you want that, move to Venezuela and learn the art of Socialism first hand.

Determining the leader of America should be more sacred than pouring money into propaganda so the people will vote for the most popular candidate. Popularity never made for a great leader.

well, i guess it becomes official. hollywood has become the propaganda arm of the dnc.

Boy, these lefties are long-winded! I got bored after the first two sentences. And none of it made any sense. God bless our men and women in uniform, God bless America!

It's hilarious to read about this effort to put together Hollywood's "creative minds," and then read the list of (ahem) creative credits: "Charley's Angels" (poorly adapted from a hack TV series), "The Bourne Ultimatum" (a poorly adapted script from a Robert Ludlum novel), "Ocean's Twelve" (a sequel to "Ocean's Eleven," which was itself a remake of a pretty bad Sinatra movie), and "The Day After Tomorrow" (a universally despised script from a hack Sci-Fi novel). None of these people have created anything...they just leech off the talent of others. If this is Hollywood's idea of a political braintrust, I don't think any conservatives will be losing sleep.

I just means I'll be bocotting some more producers and their work...which means my money will go elsewhere.....and THAT will sting more than any opinion they may produce on film

Right, like Hollywood hasn't been in the business of 2 hour political ads. I think your underestimating the intelligence (severely) of most Americans. People look to Hollywood for ENTERTAINMENT. That's all. When major movie entertainers try to enter the political arena, I'm not sure they fully realize how foolish and shallow they appear.

No wonder the Washington Post is losing its power and ability to influence the American people...

We are a country of wussies. Politically correct wimps. We are in a war and people will die. Yes, even innocent people. Did people rise up against Truman when the US bombed Hiroshima? In the proportions we see today? One bomb and the war is over. Make glass out of sand...

Just Imagine! Another left winged communist blog site out here we all can learn all the lies and social agendas the communists are trying to propagandize the internet with! You frigging communists are eventually going to force us Americans to finally rise up and throw your liberal asses out of this country and take back our government, and it's getting to be sooner than later. Those who have a sembelance of education in history and economics know what you are up to, and it is to destroy our Constitution and bring socialism to this country where millions will die just like in all communist countries in the past. You will not succeed you blithering idiots!

If we leave Iraq before the job is done. The only thing left for us to do will be to buy more ammunition.

Blood in the streets.

It doesn't matter, because it will fail. It will fail for one simple reason---it won't be funny.

So are they being paid to write and produce for the Democratic Party and other regressive organization? Or are they providing their services free of charge? If the services are free of charge to the Democratic Party and the party and it's candidates do not declare the value of the services and identify where the services came from, they've broken the law. If they charge for their services and are paid for them and are up front about their affiliation...then there isn't a problem. Although I tend to turn off Hollywood creative and business types. I've dealt with them in the past and my opinion of their ethics and sense of responsibility to follow through is no higher than the soles of my shoes.

You Silly Left-Winged Clowns !

We don't need any more of your anti-American drool.

Call me, we'll do lunch !!

Get the propaganda machine primed up, we're gonna lie the Democrats into office. If that doesn't work, we'll scare the American people into voting left. We saw the delusional sheep of America buy our story about Global Warming which was just a test, now we're ready to go for the real thing.

Ah poor Rufus. He only has ALL the major TV networks, most of the major newspapers like the NY "lie-a-minute" Times, Wash Post, LA Times, just about ALL the major mags like Time, US News, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Atlantic, New York, etc and most of the cable stations spouting his delusional liberal slant, but he and his pals still complain the Reps rule the airwaves. I love it!! Ha!

Please remember that all this talk about being socialists oh i'm sorry progressive makes me sick. Think for yourselves not what other people think is what's best for you.

The Left forms ANOTHER media production company. What is news about that? What did you call The West Wing?

The Left forms ANOTHER media production company. What is news about that? What did you call The West Wing?

To all the Hillary bashers here: your commie hero Rupert Murdoch (of Fox Pravda News) keeps running fundraisers for her. He also contributes generously to her war chest. And to further burst your ignorant little bubbles, the Clinton family and the Bush family are longtime business partners ever since the Iran/Contra drug flights out of Mena, Arkansas.

In other words, you people are being played for suckers by the same crop of Fabian socialist crooks. Bill Clinton's Fabian socialism got him the Rhodes scholarship, and George Bush Sr.'s Fabian socialism got him membership in the Council on Foreign Relations.

What a surprise!

Hollywood elitist snobs shilling for liberal politician dirt bags.

Could this really be true?

wow.. so this is the place where the horde of leftist moonbats hang out

CC, I respectfully ask you to ban each of the mofos who succeeded in shutting down the conversation today, at least on this thread. I know that I am not alone in this opinion.

It's AIR AMERICA all over again....and it too shall be ignored.

GREAT NEWS THE COUNTRY WILL BE SAVED BY HIGH SCHOOL DROP OUTS FROM THE FAIRY TALE LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE..THOSE GREAT PATRIOTS FROM LALA LAND..(SEAN PENN GET THE COKE SPOON OUT OF YOU NOSE,)FOR SECT. OF STATE.YEA...MY GRANDCHILD WILL BE SAFE..

How to Be a Good Democrat

Virtually anyone can be a Democrat. Just simply quit thinking and vote that way. But if you want to be a GOOD Democrat, there are some prerequisites.
1. You have to believe the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.

2. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.

3. You have to believe that guns, in the hands of law-abiding Americans, are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology, in the hands of Chinese communists.

4. You have to believe that there was no art before Federal funding.

5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the earth's climate, and more affected by yuppies driving SUVs.

6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being homosexual is natural.

7. You have to be against capital punishment but support abortion on demand.

8. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.

9. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but loony activists from Seattle do.

10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.

11. You have to believe the military, not corrupt politicians, start wars.

12. You have to believe the NRA is bad, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good, because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.

13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.

14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, General Robert E. Lee or Thomas Edison.

15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides aren't.

16. You have to believe Hillary Clinton is really a lady.

17. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried, is because the right people haven't been in charge.

18. You have to believe Republicans telling the truth belong in jail, but a liar and sex offender belongs in the White House.

19. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag, transvestites and bestiality should be constitutionally protected and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.

20. You have to believe that illegal Democratic party funding by the Chinese is somehow in the best interest of the United States.

Saddam Translator: ABC Re-interpreted Tapes

The FBI translator who supplied the 12-hours of Saddam Hussein audiotapes excerpted by ABC's "Nightline" Wednesday night now says the network discarded his translations and went with a less threatening version of the Iraqi dictator's comments.

"What you heard on ABC News was their translation," former U.N. weapons inspector Bill Tierney told ABC Radio's Sean Hannity on Thursday.

"They came up with something different on a key element regarding terrorism in the United States," Tierney insisted.

In the "Nightline" version of a 1996 recording, Saddam predicts that Washington, D.C. would be hit by terrorists. But he adds that Iraq would have nothing to do with the attack.

Tierney says, however, that what Saddam actually said was much more sinister. "He was discussing his intent to use chemical weapons against the United States and use proxies so it could not be traced back to Iraq," he told Hannity.

In a passage not used by "Nightline," Tierney says Saddam declares: "Terrorism is coming . . . . In the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. What if we consider this technique, with smuggling?"

Tierney's full translations are set for release this weekend by The Intelligence Group in Washington, D.C.

Saddam on Tape: Terrorists Will Attack D.C.

Five years before Osama bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Saddam Hussein predicted that Washington, D.C. would be struck by terrorists, according to audiotapes set for broadcast tonight on ABC's "Nightline."

In an ABC Radio report to promote the show, the network's lead investigative reporter, Brian Ross, revealed that the FBI translator who leaked the tapes said they contained "damning evidence that the world should know."

In one 10-year-old recording, the Iraqi dictator is said to boast that Washington would be an easy target for a nuclear or biological weapons attack. Saddam added, however, that if such an attack should come, his regime would not be directly responsible.

In fact, Saddam's 1996 warning of a terrorist attack on Washington was followed up in Iraq's state run press with even more prescient predictions.

On July 21, 2001, less than two months before 9/11, the state-controlled Iraqi newspaper Al-Nasiriya carried a column headlined "America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin." In the piece, Baath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal predicted that bin Laden would attack the U.S. "with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House."

In 1992, Saddam's son Uday used an editorial in Babil, the newspaper he ran, to warn of Iraqi kamikaze attacks inside America, saying, "Does the United States realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross countries and cities?"
In the late 1990s, according to UPI, "a cable to Saddam from the chief of Iraqi intelligence was transmitted by Baghdad Radio. The message read, 'We will chase [Americans] to every corner at all times. No high tower of steel will protect them against the fire of truth.'"

After the 9/11 attacks, Saddam became the only world leader to offer praise for bin Laden, even as other terrorist leaders such as Yasser Arafat went out of their way to make a show of sympathy to the U.S. by donating blood for 9/11 victims.

The day after the attacks, in quotes picked up by Agence France-Press, Saddam proclaimed that "America is reaping the thorns planted by its rulers in the world."

"There is hardly a place [in the world] that does not have a memorial symbolizing the criminal actions committed by America against its natives," AFP quoted the Iraqi dictator complaining, based on reports in the Iraqi News agency.

For his part, Uday flat-out praised the 9/11 attacks, saying, "These were courageous operations carried out by young Arabs and Muslims," according to quotes picked up by the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat.
"Nightline's" broadcast tonight will be based on 12 hours of tapes obtained by ABC News. But that's likely only the tip of the iceberg.

In his April 2005 final report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer said he had uncovered "a large collection" of recordings of Saddam chairing his Revolutionary Command Council.

Sometimes I wonder if Hollywood or Pallywood is worse?

Pallywood, "According to Palestinian Sources..." a film by Richard Landes. International news media extract a few convincing instants of staged scenes - sight-bytes, and present them as news...
Streaming video: pallywood.wmv

http://www.seconddraft.org/streaming/pallywood.wmv

How they're lying about "he lied us into war."

Thursday, November 3, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Harry Reid pulled the Senate into closed session Tuesday, claiming that "The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this Administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq." But the Minority Leader's statement was as demonstrably false as his stunt was transparently political.

What Mr. Reid's pose is "really all about" is the emergence of the Clare Boothe Luce Democrats. We're referring to the 20th-century playwright, and wife of Time magazine founder Henry Luce, who was most famous for declaring that Franklin D. Roosevelt had "lied us into war" with the Nazis and Tojo. So intense was the hatred of FDR among some Republicans that they held fast to this slander for years, with many taking their paranoia to their graves.

We are now seeing the spectacle of Bush-hating Democrats adopting a similar slander against the current President regarding the Iraq War. The indictment by Patrick Fitzgerald of Vice Presidential aide I. Lewis Libby has become their latest opening to promote this fiction, notwithstanding the mountains of contrary evidence. To wit:
� In July 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan 500-page report that found numerous failures of intelligence gathering and analysis. As for the Bush Administration's role, "The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," (our emphasis).

� The Butler Report, published by the British in July 2004, similarly found no evidence of "deliberate distortion," although it too found much to criticize in the quality of prewar intelligence.

� The March 2005 Robb-Silberman report on WMD intelligence was equally categorical, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . .analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments."

� Finally, last Friday, there was Mr. Fitzgerald: "This indictment's not about the propriety of the war, and people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who are--have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel."

In short, everyone who has looked into the question of whether the Bush Administration lied about intelligence, distorted intelligence, or pressured intelligence agencies to produce assessments that would support a supposedly pre-baked decision to invade Iraq has come up with the same answer: No, no, no and no.

Everyone, that is, except Joseph Wilson IV. He first became the Democrats' darling in July 2003, when he published an op-ed claiming he'd debunked Mr. Bush's "16 words" on Iraqi attempts to purchase African yellowcake and that the Administration had distorted the evidence about Saddam's weapons programs to fit its agenda. This Wilson tale fit the "lied us into war" narrative so well that he was adopted by the John Kerry presidential campaign.

Only to be dropped faster than a Paris Hilton boyfriend after the Senate Intelligence and Butler reports were published. Those reports clearly showed that, while Saddam had probably not purchased yellowcake from Niger, the dictator had almost certainly tried--and that Mr. Wilson's own briefing of the CIA after his mission supported that conclusion. Mr. Wilson somehow omitted that fact from his public accounts at the time.

He also omitted to explain why the CIA had sent him to Niger: His wife, who worked at the CIA, had suggested his name for the trip, a fact Mr. Wilson also denied, but which has also since been proven. In other words, the only real support there has ever been for the "Bush lied" storyline came from a man who is himself a demonstrable liar. If we were Nick Kristof and the other writers who reported Mr. Wilson's facts as gospel, we'd be apologizing to our readers.

Yet, incredibly, Mr. Wilson has once again become the Democrats' favorite mascot because they want him as a prop for their "lied us into war" revival campaign. They must think the media are stupid, because so many Democrats are themselves on the record in the pre-Iraq War period as declaring that Saddam had WMD. Here is Al Gore from September 23, 2002, amid the Congressional debate over going to war: "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Or Hillary Rodham Clinton, from October 10, 2002: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. . . ."

Or Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who is now leading the "Bush lied" brigades (from October 10, 2002): "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. . . .We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." If Mr. Bush is a liar, what does the use of the phrase "unmistakable evidence" make Mr. Rockefeller? A fool?

The scandal here isn't what happened before the war. The scandal is that the same Democrats who saw the same intelligence that Mr. Bush saw, who drew the same conclusions, and who voted to go to war are now using the difficulties we've encountered in that conflict as an excuse to rewrite history. Are Republicans really going to let them get away with it?

"Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMD) Hypocrisy
The following quotes highlight the recent WMD hypocrisy propagated by the "Leftist Media" and/or the Democrats who now say President Bush lied, that there never were any weapons of mass destruction, and that he took us to war for his oil buddies:

(And don't miss the May 2004, and Aug. 2005 articles!)

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"Look, we have exhausted virtually all our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?" Tom Daschle, Feb. 11, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov.10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of an elicit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-if necessary-to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members .. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

Let me understand this. Liberals (especially the kooky Hollywood ones) hate Bush, free markets, the military, any conservative, meat eaters, God, automobiles, unborn babies, justice, law abiding citizens, police, men in general (especially white ones), Christians, small businesses, big businesses, successful people, Israelites, anyone with white skin, etc. etc. Oh lets simplify it. You just hate America! What other conclusion can we arrive at based on Liberal (especially Hollywood liberal) behavior?

What's that you say? You don't hate everything. I really should not be one sided. After all you do love things and people as well.
Let's see. What do Liberals love? Hmmmmm....
Oh yeah, dictators, Chavez, ANY America hater (that goes without saying), murderers, (as long as they can vote from prison), radical Muslims, illegal aliens, Castro (and anyone else that hates America), Marx, Lenin, Stalin (He just went over the line right?), Mao, oh and did I mention ANYONE who hates America? Does that include EVERYTHING about America???? It must since they can't find a good thing to say about this great country that has lined their Hollywood pockets to the tune of trillions. Try to get THEM to give up their SUVs and air conditioned barns though and they'll go to war. That kind of sacrifice is just for us little people, not movie stars like them.

Wake up traditional Democrats, freaks have taken over your party. I would be embarrassed to be a Democrat as it is defined today. They don't care how much destruction they do to their own country to win their game. That's the problem with them. This isn't a game.
Politically I'd be fine with the D party driving itself so far down the road of kookism that it'll take decades to recover but as an American I would prefer that they step up and work productively for the country and redeem their character as a party of the people.

The "Secret" JFK Tax Cuts

Democrats and the Kennedys are once again proving to be hypocrite fools suffering from the famous case of liberal amnesia. The controversy this time stems from John F. Kennedy in advertisements that support President Bush's new tax cut plan. Senator Ted Kennedy is fuming over JFK's name and image being used to support tax cuts, something he vehemently opposes. These ads in question compare the massive tax cuts of JFK to those of Reagan and Bush, and rightfully so.

This ordeal is only a small part of the larger problem; that modern day Democrats and socialists have hijacked the good name of John F. Kennedy. One of JFK's key economic plans included massive, across-the-board tax cuts, similar to those of Reagan. Much like the 1920's and 1980's, it was these tax cuts that led to the Golden Kennedy-Johnson years.

Pro-tax lobbyists claim that Kennedy's tax cuts were significantly different than the tax cuts of Reagan, and the proposed tax cuts of Bush. They claim that Kennedy's tax cuts benefited low-income families, while Republican tax cuts only benefit the wealthy. On the contrary, they are quite similar. To an extent, Kennedy's tax cuts benefited the upper and upper middle classes even more. By the time Kennedy took office, the top income tax rate had reached 94%. Kennedy originally asked for it to be reduced to 65%, but Congress slashed this down to 70%. During a speech, JFK stated, "the current tax system exerts too heavy a drag on growth ...reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment and risk taking." Without a question, it is mostly the middle and upper classes that undertake risky purchases and investment. As expected, the tax revenue from the top 1%, the top 5%, and top 20% surged as a result of income growth from the tax cuts. Tax revenue from the rich increased from almost 12% in 1963, to 15% by 1966.

The tax cuts from Republicans are no different and produced the same results. Harding and Coolidge cut the top tax rate from 73% in 1921 to 25% by 1925, and the tax share from the rich soared from 44% to 78%. Reagan picked up where Kennedy left off, slashing the highest tax rate from 70% down to 50% as part of his Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. His plan cut taxes across-the-board by 25% - this was not a tax cut solely for the rich. The top tax rate was further lowered to 28% in 1986. What resulted was the largest peacetime expansion in the history of the United States, and record lows for inflation and unemployment. Income tax revenue soared 16.3% from 1982 to 1989. Kennedy's own words concur this: "It is a paradoxical truth, that tax rates are too high today, and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the tax rates".

Apparently, it's fine for a Democratic President to push for tax cuts that will spur economic growth, but not for a Republican like Ronald Reagan, and now George W. Bush. To say that JFK's tax cut was any different is a blatant lie. In a way, Kennedy's tax cut could have benefited the rich even more. Any tax cut from rates as high as over 90% will have a much larger impact than a tax cut on tax rates from 20 through 50%.

Bush only plans to reduce the top income tax rate from 39.6 to 33%. Kennedy cut taxes for the rich by one-third. Bush's income tax cut is only a one-sixth reduction. Additionally, Bush's tax cut would return less than 7 cents on each dollar earned, whereas Kennedy's tax cut returned 26 cents on each dollar. These are facts conveniently left out by Ted Kennedy and other Democrats - that Kennedy too drastically cut taxes for the rich, and that Reagan's tax cuts were across-the-board and caused tax revenue to increase. The evil Republicans' tax cuts even propose an end to the marriage penalty tax and the tax on Social Security benefits!

Part of Ted Kennedy's argument is that Kennedy's tax cut returned less money to those earning above $300,000. Well, of course. During the 1960's, the size of the upper class was considerably lower. From population growth and upward mobility caused by the tax cuts of Kennedy and Reagan, the number of people earning as much is larger. Ted also fails to take into account the rising value of the dollar. A current income of $300,000 translates to $50,000 forty years ago. Neither did Kennedy curb federal spending or the national debt, possibly the most trivial and over-exaggerated economic concerns.

The only fundamental difference lies in the end to double taxation on dividends. Business income is already taxed through a corporate tax. When shareholders are paid this income as dividends, and taxed again, this double taxation discourages investment in the stock market, and for businesses to pay dividends to shareholders. And unlike forty years ago, the numbers and types of people invested in the stock market have skyrocketed. Regardless, the parallels shown in the pro-Bush tax cut advertisements are real. All three Presidents have passed massive tax cut legislation, including the infamous "tax cuts for the rich".

Ted Kennedy and his comrades in the Democratic Party have exploited the legacy of Kennedy. Being the relatives of one of the most popular Presidents, it is fairly easy to fool the public into believing them. However, their sole claim to any legitimacy is shattered by the fact that the very same tax cuts they are vocal opponents of, were not only passed, but also defended by Kennedy. The Kennedys and Democrats will go to great lengths to suppress this, as if they have the sole rights to an ex-President's public record, video footage, and words. It's extremely strong partisanship. Kennedy is a Democrat. They hate the fact that he cut taxes, so they conveniently hide that detail whenever they attack tax cuts. Kennedy is like Teflon when it comes to tax cuts.

Why do schools and the liberal media rarely, if ever, mention JFK's tax cuts, but readily focus on, and denounce the tax cuts of Reagan? Why do they only mention the boom of the 60's and its social programs, but never mention the positive aspects of the Reagan years? Could it be that the socialists only intend taxes to continually increase, and that any tax cut, that in any way helps the largest taxpayers, is only a "tax cut for the rich"? This thinking is what led to the 90 % tax rates that a member of their own party cut.

The advertisements in dispute are fully justified. One only needs to examine the true economic policy and beliefs of JFK. History is on the side of tax cuts - the same side of Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. If JFK had been alive today, it is likely he would have switched to the Republican Party. Actual quote from Kennedy: "An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget - just as it will never produce enough jobs or profits." Yep, JFK was a supply-sider, one of those greedy, rich, white, [insert liberal buzzword here] politicians who likes to cut taxes.

John F. Kennedy - the last, and one of the few, good Democrats.

Sorry Ted: JFK cut taxes

Among Camelot-crazed liberals, quoting President John F. Kennedy in support of a Republican tax-cut proposal is as much a sacrilege as quoting the Bible in defense of Bill Clinton's sexual behavior - in fact, judging from their acceptance of Rev. Jesse Jackson, much more so. So it is all the more understandable that Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), the president's younger brother and the biggest political beneficiary of JFK's legacy, is pretty steamed about an ad running in support of President George W. Bush's tax-cut proposal.

One conservative group is running an ad supporting the Bush tax cut, narrated by publisher and professional tax-cut enthusiast Steve Forbes, that quotes President Kennedy's 1962 address before the Economic Club of New York. This speech was the beginning of Kennedy's campaign for an across-the-board tax cut that eventually passed following his assassination and was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Like Ronald Reagan before him, President Bush and his supporters are bolstering the case for a tax cut by touting the positive economic results of the Kennedy-Johnson tax cut. This ad however uses the martyred president's image and voice in the service of a cause his Democratic Party opposes.

Sen. Kennedy and his niece Caroline Schlossberg, the 35th president's daughter, wrote the group a letter denouncing the ad and insisting that the use of JFK cease and desist. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer quipped that their response was as if the Taliban had blown up the giant JFK bust in the Kennedy Center. They huffed and puffed about intellectual dishonesty and intone, "If President Kennedy were here today, he would vigorously oppose President Bush's irresponsible tax scheme." Family lineage notwithstanding, this assertion is no less unverifiable and ridiculous than the never-ending arguments about what Martin Luther King would support or oppose if he were still alive today.

It's true. While Ted Kennedy voted for his brother's tax cut in 1964, he has a long public record of opposing tax relief from the original Kemp-Roth bill in 1978 to the tax cuts proposed by congressional Republicans in the last session. But that has no bearing on what his brother would support today or what he in fact did as president, anymore than President Reagan's policies were impacted by the childish ideology of Patti Davis.

Keepers of the flame take note: While President Kennedy is an icon of modern American liberalism on a par with Franklin D. Roosevelt, he did not always take positions that would endear him with today's Ben and Jerry-munching left. He was a proponent of increased defense spending and an aggressive anti-communist stance during the Cold War. His friends in the Senate included Joe McCarthy, who he did not vote to censure, and Barry Goldwater. And he proposed what was at the time the biggest tax cut in history.

Ted and Caroline argue in their letter that only 6 percent of President Kennedy's tax cut went to those earning $300,000 or more annually, that much-ballyhooed top 1 percent. President Bush's proposal is often said to give more than 40 percent of the tax cut to the top 1 percent, more than seven times as much. Even by the president's own estimates, the aggregate dollar amount going to the wealthiest taxpayers is much higher than what President Kennedy proposed.

There are several reasons for this. First, the top 1 percent was paying 20 percent of income taxes collected in 1962 (under a 91 percent top marginal rate) compared to 35 percent today (under a 39.6 percent top marginal rate). Second, there are more people with incomes in excess of $300,000 today than with comparable incomes in today's dollars 40 years ago. Third, many low-income Americans have been dropped off the tax rolls entirely and no longer pay any income tax. President Kennedy's tax cut and the prosperity it generated helped along each and every one of those trends.

Ultimately, what percentage of the tax cut the top 1 percent got is irrelevant and misleading. The tax cut that eventually became law in 1964 cut the top rate to 70 percent, or by 21 percentage points compared to the 6.6-point cut Bush is suggesting. The Kennedy tax cut equaled more than 2 percent of the economy, nearly double the 1.1 percent represented by Bush's proposal, and 12.6 percent of federal revenues - more than twice the 6 percent of revenues represented by the Bush tax cut. Kennedy wanted to let the highest income earners keep an additional 27 cents on the dollar rather than just six cents on the dollar as Bush proposed. Kennedy cut the bottom to tax rate to 14 percent while Bush would cut it down to 10 percent.

It is perfectly valid for proponents of across-the-board tax relief today to cite the historical experience of such reductions in the past. President Kennedy's tax cuts touched off what was then the longest economic expansion in US history, with 5.1 percent annual growth rates from 1964 to 1967. Tax collections from the wealthiest taxpayers and federal revenues generally increased. All these trends were arrested by President Johnson's Vietnam-era income tax surcharge in 1968.

In addition to the results and substance of the tax cut, it is perfectly responsible for Republicans to cite President Kennedy's views on taxation and tax cuts in principle. In the address the ad campaign cites, Kennedy calls for "an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes." He argued "that our present tax system ... exerts too heavy a drag on growth ... siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power, [and] reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking." Kennedy explicitly endorsed rate reductions for high-income taxpayers in language that foreshadowed supply-side economics, proposing tax cuts "for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and ... invest more capital."

Kennedy further argued in a January 24, 1963 message to Congress, "As I have repeatedly emphasized, our choice today is not between a tax cut and a balanced budget. Our choice is between chronic deficits resulting from chronic slack, on the one hand, and transitional deficits temporarily enlarged by tax revision designed to promote full employment and thus make possible an ultimately balanced budget." Lest members of Congress failed to get the point: "I repeat: our practical choice is not between a tax-cut deficit and budgetary surplus. It is between two kinds of deficits: a chronic deficit of inertia, as the unwanted result of inadequate revenues and a restricted economy; or a temporary deficit of transition, resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, increase tax revenues, and achieve--and I believe this can be done--a budget surplus."

It should be noted that many of Kennedy's more liberal economic advisors opposed the tax cut, most notably John Kenneth Galbraith. So did some Republicans who were fixated on green-eyeshade budgeting, such as a congressman from Kansas by the name of Robert Dole. Supply-side economics did not yet exist as economic theory and as Walter Heller has argued, the tax cut was at least part designed with Keynesian demand-side intentions. Nevertheless, JFK rejected arguments against marginal rate cuts that are identical to those being made by Ted today. That is something the ad campaign legitimately points out, to the chagrin of the senior senator from Massachusetts.

The Kennedy family has tried to behave as if it has ownership of JFK's presidential legacy, from this dust-up over the tax cut ads to Patrick Kennedy's near fisticuffs with Bob Barr over a congressional speech that quoted the former president. For politically active Kennedys to accuse others of exploiting the legacy of Camelot is sheer hypocrisy. Not one of them, Ted included, would likely have gone as far in politics were it not for their relation to Jack Kennedy.

Not everything Kennedy did as president can be used to justify his younger brother's political agenda. Just as Kennedy Treasury official Henry Fowler cited the Harding-Coolidge tax cuts of Andrew Mellon in support of their tax cut, the late Norman Ture was an architect of both the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts - with the former being one of the experiences that began his pioneering work in supply-side theory. Much of the foreign-policy team with which Reagan won the Cold War was comprised of JFK-admiring Democrats (Max Kampelman, Richard Perle, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Eugene Rostow, etc.). Are they too to be banned from using the words and image of President Kennedy?

I hope that more Republicans point out the success of the Kennedy tax cuts in arguing for a new tax cut today, Kennedy clan carping be damned. Ted Kennedy may have made a career out of righteous indignation, but at times it gets a bit tiresome.

Sorry everyone, but Iraq did go uranium shopping in Niger.
CIA document:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB215/def_ex/DX439.pdf

In the late 1980s, the Iraqi representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency�Iraq's senior public envoy for nuclear matters, in effect�was a man named Wissam al-Zahawie. After the Kuwait war in 1991, when Rolf Ekeus arrived in Baghdad to begin the inspection and disarmament work of UNSCOM, he was greeted by Zahawie, who told him in a bitter manner that "now that you have come to take away our assets," the two men could no longer be friends. (They had known each other in earlier incarnations at the United Nations in New York.)

At a later 1995 U.N. special session on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Zahawie was the Iraqi delegate and spoke heatedly about the urgent need to counterbalance Israel's nuclear capacity. At the time, most democratic countries did not have full diplomatic relations with Saddam's regime, and there were few fully accredited Iraqi ambassadors overseas, Iraq's interests often being represented by the genocidal Islamist government of Sudan (incidentally, yet another example of collusion between "secular" Baathists and the fundamentalists who were sheltering Osama Bin Laden). There was one exception�an Iraqi "window" into the world of open diplomacy�namely the mutual recognition between the Baathist regime and the Vatican. To this very important and sensitive post in Rome, Zahawie was appointed in 1997, holding the job of Saddam's ambassador to the Holy See until 2000. Those who knew him at that time remember a man much given to anti-Jewish tirades, with a standing ticket for Wagner performances at Bayreuth. (Actually, as a fan of Das Rheingold and G�tterd�mmerung in particular, I find I can live with this. Hitler secretly preferred sickly kitsch like Franz Lehar.)

In February 1999, Zahawie left his Vatican office for a few days and paid an official visit to Niger, a country known for absolutely nothing except its vast deposits of uranium ore. It was from Niger that Iraq had originally acquired uranium in 1981, as confirmed in the Duelfer Report. In order to take the Joseph Wilson view of this Baathist ambassadorial initiative, you have to be able to believe that Saddam Hussein's long-term main man on nuclear issues was in Niger to talk about something other than the obvious. Italian intelligence (which first noticed the Zahawie trip from Rome) found it difficult to take this view and alerted French intelligence (which has better contacts in West Africa and a stronger interest in nuclear questions). In due time, the French tipped off the British, who in their cousinly way conveyed the suggestive information to Washington. As everyone now knows, the disclosure appeared in watered-down and secondhand form in the president's State of the Union address in January 2003.

If the above was all that was known, it would surely be universally agreed that no responsible American administration could have overlooked such an amazingly sinister pattern. Given the past Iraqi record of surreptitious dealing, cheating of inspectors, concealment of sites and caches, and declared ambition to equip the technicians referred to openly in the Baathist press as "nuclear mujahideen," one could scarcely operate on the presumption of innocence.

However, the waters have since become muddied, to say the least. For a start, someone produced a fake document, dated July 6, 2000, which purports to show Zahawie's signature and diplomatic seal on an actual agreement for an Iraqi uranium transaction with Niger. Almost everything was wrong with this crude forgery�it had important dates scrambled, and it misstated the offices of Niger politicians. In consequence, IAEA Chairman Mohammed ElBaradei later reported to the U.N. Security Council that the papers alleging an Iraq-Niger uranium connection had been demonstrated to be fraudulent.

But this doesn't alter the plain set of established facts in my first three paragraphs above. The European intelligence services, and the Bush administration, only ever asserted that the Iraqi regime had apparently tried to open (or rather, reopen) a yellowcake trade "in Africa." It has never been claimed that an agreement was actually reached. What motive could there be for a forgery that could be instantly detected upon cursory examination?

There seem to be only three possibilities here. Either a) American intelligence concocted the note; b) someone in Italy did so in the hope of gain; or c) it was the product of disinformation, intended to protect Niger and discredit any attention paid to the actual, real-time Zahawie visit. The CIA is certainly incompetent enough to have fouled up this badly. (I like Edward Luttwak's formulation in the March 22 Times Literary Supplement, where he writes that "there have been only two kinds of CIA secret operations: the ones that are widely known to have failed�usually because of almost unbelievably crude errors�and the ones that are not yet widely known to have failed.") Still, it almost passes belief that any American agency would fake a document that purportedly proved far more than the administration had asked and then get every important name and date wrapped round the axle. Forgery for gain is easy to understand, especially when it is borne in mind that nobody wastes time counterfeiting a bankrupt currency. Forgery for disinformation, if that is what it was, appears at least to have worked. Almost everybody in the world now affects to believe that Saddam Hussein was framed on the Niger rap.

According to the London Sunday Times of April 9, the truth appears to be some combination of b) and c). A NATO investigation has identified two named employees of the Niger Embassy in Rome who, having sold a genuine document about Zahawie to Italian and French intelligence agents, then added a forged paper in the hope of turning a further profit. The real stuff went by one route to Washington, and the fakery, via an Italian journalist and the U.S. Embassy in Rome, by another. The upshot was�follow me closely here�that a phony paper alleging a deal was used to shoot down a genuine document suggesting a connection.

Zahawie's name and IAEA connection were never mentioned by ElBaradei in his report to the United Nations, and his past career has never surfaced in print. Looking up the press of the time causes one's jaw to slump in sheer astonishment. Here, typically, is a Time magazine "exclusive" about Zahawie, written by Hassan Fattah on Oct. 1, 2003:

The veteran diplomat has spent the eight months since President Bush's speech trying to set the record straight and clear his name. In a rare interview with Time, al-Zahawie outlined how forgery and circumstantial evidence was used to talk up Iraq's nuclear weapons threat, and leave him holding the smoking gun.

A few paragraphs later appear, the wonderful and unchallenged words from Zahawie: "Frankly, I didn't know that Niger produced uranium at all." Well, sorry for the inconvenience of the questions, then, my old IAEA and NPT "veteran" (whose nuclear qualifications go unmentioned in the Time article). Instead, we are told that Zahawie visited Niger and other West African countries to encourage them to break the embargo on flights to Baghdad, as they had broken the sanctions on Qaddafi's Libya. A bit of a lowly mission, one might think, for one of the Iraqi regime's most senior and specialized envoys.

The Duelfer Report also cites "a second contact between Iraq and Niger," which occurred in 2001, when a Niger minister visited Baghdad "to request assistance in obtaining petroleum products to alleviate Niger's economic problems." According to the deposition of Ja'far Diya' Ja'far (the head of Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons program), these negotiations involved no offer of uranium ore but only "cash in exchange for petroleum." West Africa is awash in petroleum, and Niger is poor in cash. Iraq in 2001 was cash-rich through the oil-for-food racket, but you may if you wish choose to believe that a near-bankrupt African delegation from a uranium-based country traveled across a continent and a half with nothing on its mind but shopping for oil.

Interagency feuding has ruined the Bush administration's capacity to make its case in public, and a high-level preference for deniable leaking has further compounded the problem. But please read my first three paragraphs again and tell me if the original story still seems innocuous to you.

Hillary Ignored Warnings About Hsu's Dirty Cash Despite being warned months ago that a shady Chinese fundraiser ran an illegal enterprise, Hillary Clinton gladly accepted his hefty donations
Judicial Watch

Al Franken: Claims to support affirmative action and has accused conservatives of racism due to their opposition to affirmative action, yet public records reveal that of 112 people Franken either hired or had a hand in getting hired to work on his films, television series' and radio show, only one was black; also, though he has stated that conservatives spread "filth, sleaze, and bile through the media appartus," Franken has made jokes considered tasteless by many about Bob Dole's WWII injury, John McCain's time spent as a POW (stating, "Anybody could get captured. Essentially, he sat out the war") and the menstrual cycle of one of Newt Gingrich's daughters. He was also quoted in the Harvard Crimson during his Saturday Night Live days, "I just don't like homosexuals. If you ask me, they're all homosexuals in the (Harvard Hasty) Pudding. Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia."

Noam Chomsky: One of the premiere anti-capitalists and anti-militarists in academia today, Chomsky, a self-described "anarchist-socialist," has been paid millions by the Pentagon�which he once called "the most hideous institution on this earth"�over the last 40 years, as well as various corporations, which he has described as "just as totalitarian as Bolshevism and fascism." When asked by Schweizer about his seeming contradiction, Chomsky responded (via email), "I think we should be responsible for what we do, not for the bureaucratic queston of who stamps the paycheck." Chomsky then went on to rationalize his wealth achieved via Pentagon contacts by stating that anyone who uses the Internet, which was created the U.S. military, is guilty of working for the Pentagon. Though he has lectured that other university professors should ween themselves of Pentagon funding in the form of grants and scholarships, he has yet to do so himself.

Chomsky's public condemnations of capitalism, which he calls a "grotesque catastrophe," are similarly contradicted by his private lifestyle. Mr. Chomsky lives in an $850,000 house and has a $1.2 million vacation home, both in Massachusetts. A critic of the "massive use of tax havens to shift the burden to the general population and away from the rich," he has called tax rebates "equivalent to a welfare payment," yet has set up trusts in his children's and tax attorney's names in order to avoid future payment of inheritance taxes. His loathing of copyrights and patents has also not stopped him from copyrighting his lectures, speeches and articles over the years (which can be downloaded�for a fee�off the Internet). After speaking at a benefit sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Democratic Left where Chomsky stated, "A democracy requires a free, independent and inquiring media," a reporter named Deborah Bolling was told that she would have to pay $35 to interview him. Perhaps most damning is his impressive stock portfolio, which includes shares in oil companies, military contractors and pharmaceuticals.

While Chomsky has championed free speech and denounced what he sees as a lack thereof in the United States, he has often visited Communist nations completely devoid of free speech and given speeches celebrating the sociopolitical systems of Laos, Cambodia, China, North Vietnam and Cuba, although chomsky frequently denounces the imprisonment of political dissidents in those nations and speaks out against the various human rights abuses so rapant in totalitarian regimes.

George Soros: Wants higher taxes on wealthy individuals, one of which he is, claiming he would bear any tax increase to help the poor. Soros, however, has most of his money in Bahamian banks where it is immune from U.S. taxes. The tax hike he calls for would barely affect him.

Barbra Streisand: Though she claims to be a champion of the working class, the environment and women's rights, in private her actions contradict her public proclamations. Brad Meltzer, a former employee who was on good terms with Striesand during his 18 months working for her, states, "She was generous in terms of large amounts�big charities, things like that, but absolutely mean and niggardly about the salaries of the working people she hired. I recall once that Jon [Peters] had hired some young Mexican workers who had no green cards and paid them $3.50 an hour, but the work wasn't getting done fast enough. Barbra wanted them to work overtime. She told me to fire them and have them replaced. It killed me, but I did it." Also, any contractors hired to do work on her Malibu ranch have had to place liens on the property in order to get paid, the bills ranging from $4,500 to $50,000. Kris Kristofferson, her co-star in the film A Star is Born, once said, "Filming with Streisand is an experience which may have cured me of the movies."

Although she claims that the working men and women of America deserve higher wages, her production company, Barwood Films, usually films in Canada, where she can pay lower wages and receive tax breaks that she cannot get in the United States. Ms. Streisand has often accused Republicans and conservatives of greed, yet, in 1993, she admitted to the Washington Post she was almost broke due to her lavish spending. Despite claiming she would "rather pay more taxes" than receive tax breaks, Streisand took a $15 million write-off for Malibu property she donated to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, even though she had failed to find a buyer when the property was on the market for $11.9 million. This landed her in trouble with the IRS, and she ended up negotiating a settlement for an undisclosed amount.

Streisand told Tikkun magazine that "We continue to thrive on this earth, but in order to do so, we must adapt to a more sustainable way of life. While there is still some time to alter our way of living, we must begin to behave respectfully and honor these sacred gifts�our rolling hills, the depths of our blue oceans and rivers, the richness of our forests and plants and the vastness of our land." Contradicting this statement, Ms. Streisand has consumed in excess both water and air conditioning in her private life, and invested greatly in oil companies and Halliburton. She also sued Ken and Gabrielle Adelman for $50 million when the Adelmans posted aerial photos of her Point Dume estate while it was undergoing extensive development. This raised the ire of many in the environmentalest movement, who opposed such development, and the case was thrown out by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.

Finally, while she publicly supports affirmative action for blacks, and has publicly stated her deep kinship with black Americans, Ms. Streisand rarely hires blacks to produce or direct her films. Out of 63 producers and directors she has hired over the years, only one was black.

This is from the Congressional Record in Washington DC. It shows that the original purpose of the ACLU was not to protect the Constitution of the United States of America but to destroy it.
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD:

PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 87TH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION

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The Truth About The American Civil Liberties Union

Extension of Remarks of Hon. John H. Rousselot of California In The House Of Representatives Wednesday, September 20, 1961

Mr ROUSSELOT: Mr. Speaker, many people have becomed very concerned about the connections of certain persons involved in the affairs of the American Civil Liberties Union with Communist front groups. They are asking the question: Does the ACLU really promote adherence to rights guaranteed the individual by the Constitution?..................

One quick way to evaluate the ideology of organizations is through consideration of the statements and claims of their leaders. So it seems neccessary for a realistic appraisal of the civil rights policy of the American Civil Liberties Union that we develop the factual background of their prominent officials and leaders.

It has taken us months of painstaking research to prepare this pamphlet; it will take you only minutes to read it. So please read it and then pass it on and inform others of the information you are about to learn.

SECTION 1

These are a few of the past and present prominent officials and leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Communism is my goal
1. Roger Baldwin, founder and guiding light of the ACLU for over 30 years, is now a member of the National Committee of the ACLU. Mr Roger Baldwin has a record of over 100 communist-front affiliations and citations (documented in detail, CONGRESSIONAL RECORD May 26, 1952). In an article written for Soviet Russia Today (September 1934), Roger Baldwin said: "When the power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatsoever." "The class struggle is the central conflict of the world, all others are coincidental.". (He said he did not care who died for his cause)

Entry of Roger Baldwin in the Harvard reunion book on the occasion of the 30th anniversary reunion of his class of 1905 (1935), "I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control of those who produced the wealth: communism is the goal." (he said the goal of the ACLU is to take freedom from the people.)

2. Dr. Harry Ward, first chairman of the ACLU. Dr. Harry Ward has a record of over 200 Communist front affiliations and citations listed by the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HCUA). Dr. Harry Ward was chairman of one of the largest Communist fronts to flourish in this country, "The American League for Peace and Democracy," which was placed on the Attorney General of the United States list of subversive organizations on June 1, 1948. Dr. Ward is the author of "Soviet Democracy" and "Soviet Spirit," two pro-Communist books which clearly show Dr. Ward's love for the Soviet system of government. The California Senate Fact Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, in their 1948 report, page 246, said: "The Communist affiliation of Dr. Harry F. Ward is indicative of the Communist sympaties of the members and sponsors of the "Friends of the Soviet Union.". (Dr. Ward said the goal of the ACLU was the over throw of the constitution)

3. Abraham L. Wirin, chief counsel for the Southern California Chapter of the ACLU, sometimes referred to as "Mr. ACLU."

In 1934 A. L. Wirin formed a law partnership with Leo Gllagher and Grover Johnson (reference: Daily Peoples World, Mar. 5, 1934, official publication of the Communist Party on the west coast). Mr Leo Gallagher ran for State office on the Communist Party ticket in 1936 and Grover Johnson, when asked by a governmental investigating agency if he had ever been a member of the Communist Party, refused to answer the question on the grounds that he might incriminate himself.

In 1954, A. L. Wirin was a candidate for the executive board of National Lawyers Guild (reference: Los Angeles Daily Journal, Jan 13, 1954). The National Lawyers Guild has been cited as a Communist Front organization by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) September 21, 1950. (Four years before, Mr. Wirin was a candidate for the executive board.) (As chief counsel his goal was to take liberity, freedom, God and Morality from the next generations through the schools and the courts.)

4. Dr. Albert Eason Monroe, executive director of the Southern California Chapter of the ACLU:

In 1952, Dr. Albert Eason Monroe, U.S. Navy serial No. 316900, was discharged from the U.S. Naval Reserve under conditions other than honorable.

In 1950, Dr. Monroe was fired from his position as head of the English department of San Francisco college for refusing to sign a loyalty oath. (The purpose of loyalty oaths is to protect the unsuspecting individual from lending his name to a Communist cause and from becoming a Communist dupe. The requirements of loyalty oaths have multiplied the obstacles to the Communists in recruiting memberships for their front organizations and maintaining discipline over fellow travelers in Government service. Few people will swear to an oath knowing it to be false and knowing that they might be liable to indictment and imprisonment for perjury. This requirement places a most difficult hurdle in front of the Communists attempting to ensnare an unsuspecting recruit into their conspiracy.)

In 1953, Dr. Albert Eason Monroe was listed as being chairman of the Federation for Repeal of the Levering Act (ie., loyalty oaths), which was cited as being a Communist front organization by the California State Senate Committee on Education in its 1952 report to the State legislature. (His goal was to stop any reference to loyality to America. If we can stop patriotism in the children we will have the nation)

5. Rev. A. A. Heist, executive director of the Southern California Chapter of the ACLU in 1952, and Dr. Monroe's predecessor. Rev. A. A. Heist was a signer of the statement to the President of the United States, defending the Communist Party (reference: Daily Worker Mar 5, 1941). In 1952, the Reverend Heist resigned his position in the ACLU to become director of a new organization which he founded, called the Citizens' Committee to Preserve American Freedoms (CCPAF). This organization is run by its executive secretary, Mr. Frank Wilkinson, an identified Communist. At a meeting of the district council of the southern California district of the Communist Party, United States of America, Dorothy Healy, well-known Communist and chairman of the district council, said, "The party preferred public protest meetings against the HCUA to be held by the Citizens Committee To Preserve American Freedoms rather than under party auspices because Communists could attend without danger of being exposed as party members." (Reference HCUA, H. Rept. 259, Apr 3, 1950, "Report on the Southern California District of the Communist Party". The Citizens Committee To Preserve American Freedoms was cited as being a Communist front organization by the HCUA on April 3, 1959.

The Reverend Heist stated in a speech to an audience of high school and junior college students in Pasadena that "the Constitution of the United States is outmoded, outdated, and impotent." (One of the stated goals of the ACLU is to preserve the Constitution. but the founding fathers of the ACLU wanted to destroy it.)

In 1948, the Reverend Heist protested the withdrawal of the use of their hall by Occidental College to an identified Communist poet, Langston Hughes, who was to speak on a poem of his entitled, "Goodbye, Christ," which called for "Christ, Jesus, Lord God Jehovah" to "beat it" and "make way for a new guy named Marx, Communist Lenin, Peasant Stalin, and worker me." (Reference: Hollywood Citizen News, February 26, 1948.) This would not be a strange protest from an atheistic Communist, but when it comes from a Methodist minister?

6. Carey McWilliams, a member of the national committee of the ACLU in 1948, who now figures prominently in the affairs of the ACLU, has been identified in sworn testimony, according to Government documents, as a member of the Communist Party. Carey McWilliams has a record of over 50 Communist-front affiliations and citations. He is the editor of "Rights," the official publication of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee which has been cited as a Communist front by the HCUA (November 8, 1957).

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7. Prof. William A. Kilpatrick, prominent member of the ACLU on the east coast, was for many years head of Teacherc College, Columbia University. In his book, "The Teacher and Society," published in 1939, Professor Kilpatrick said that "the revolution by force and violence was probably necessary in Russia, but it would not be necessary in America. Here, the same goals could be acheived by effectuating change within the framework of the Constitution." (in other words our goal is to let the constitution destroy itself in the courts.)

8. William Z. Foster, former head of the Communist Party, United States of America, was a former member of the National Committee of the ACLU. 9. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, former member of the National Committee of the ACLU until 1940, is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, United States of America.

In the report on "Communist Propaganda in America" (published 1935, A.F.L.) as submitted to the State Department, by William Green, the late president of the American Federation of Labor, Mr. Green states that: "During all the years since the establishment of the Soviet regime in Russia, propaganda in the United States has been conducted, not only through agencies directly set up by the Communist high command, but through agencies and organizations in which non-Communists of good standing and repute have been induced to participate. A careful studyof these organizations shows that they are so related through interlocking directorates that apparently some hundreds of organizations are dominated by an interlocking group of directors numbering not more than 60. Their tactics may perhaps be called the tactics of irritation, since their purpose is to create dissatisfaction as widely as possible and to bring into disrepute the authorities, and the established institutions of the country. As an example, the American Civil Liberties Union may be cited."

To support Mr. Green's statement of "the interlocking directorates," we discovered that when we looked at the record of the top 15 past and current leaders of the ACLU, we found that they had a combined record of over 1000 Communist front affiliations and citations.

Section II

What others think of the ACLU

1. Daily Worker, March 22, 1957. In reference to an ACLU meeting (New York chapter) featuring John Gates, editor of the Daily Worker, "it remains an axiom of our time, that to defend the rights of Communists is to defend the rights of all Americans." (We as a nation are forced to spend $50 billion a year to defend ourselves from the Communists.)

2. California Senate Fact Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, 1948 report, page 107: "The ACLU may be definitely classified as a Communist front or transmission belt organization." "At least 90 percent of its efforts are on behalf of Communists who come in conflict with the law."

3. House Committee To Investigate Communist Activities in the United States, report 2290 entitled, "Investigation of Communist Propaganda": "It is quite apparent that the main function of the ACLU is to protect the Communists in their advocacy of force and vilence to overthrow the U.S. Government."

4. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, special commission to investigate Communist avtivities: "The ACLU, with its front of respectability and with its large membership of sincere, worthy citizens, has provided important legal talent and a camouflage of decency behind which Communist forces have agitated and promoted their campaigns."

Section III

Odd Coincidences

1. The ACLU, long an advocate of unlimited freedom of the press and freedom of speech, asked Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson to withdraw a pamphlet entitled "How to Spot a Communist," prepared by the 1st Army and used by the Watertown, Mass., arsenal (New York Times, June 12, 1955).

2. The ACLU protested the publishing by the League of Decency of a list of movies and books that the league considered immoral. (Reference: Daily Worker, Mar. 22, 1957). (It has long been known that one of the primary aims of the Communist Party is to subvert the morals of the American public.)

3. The ACLU, when queried by Columnist Lawrence Fertig as to why "They did not defend the most basic of all civil liberties--the right of a man to earn his living without paying tribute to any other individual or private organization" (right to work laws in various States), replied, "there are no civil liberties grounds on which such statutes should be supported," (reference: Fortnights magazine, July 1955).

4. The ACLU has voiced the opinion many times that "they welcome investigation," but they unleash their vitriolic abuse upon the American Legion and brand the American Legion as a fascist group because they not only investigated the ACLU, but have requested the HCUA every year since 1953 to investigate the ACLU.

5. The ACLU has been the recipient of numerous grants from the Garland Foundation (American Fund for Public Service) which is the notorious bankroll for Communist front organizations. The Garland Fund is characterized by the California Senate Fact Finding Commission, 1948 report, page 247, as "the source of revenue for Communist causes is generally referred to as the Garland Fund."

The Garland Fund has also been cited by the United States House Special Committee on Un-American Activities as follows: "The Garland Fund was a major source for the financing of Communist Party enterprises," (reference: H. Rept. 1311, Mar 9, 1944).

Among those who have served as directors of the Garland Fund and who were directly responsible for the disbursement of funds to the different Communist Front organizations and who were or are now prominent members of the governing body of the ACLU are: Roger Baldwin, Harry F. Ward, William Z. Foster, Robert Morss Lovett, Morris L. Ernst, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Oswald Garrison Villard, and E. M. Borchard.

6. Frank Wilkinson, an identified Communist and chief hatchetman for the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and the Citizens Committee to Preserve American Freedoms in the "Operation Abolition" program, who, so far as we know, is not even a member of the ACLU, seems to be so prominent in the affairs of the ACLU. Also, an odd coincidence that a new organization that has been formed and which calls itself the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee (NCAHUAC) and has eight key members in the organization that have been identified as members of the Communist Party gives its mailing address at 617 North Larchmont Boulevard, Los Angeles 4, Calif., wh