Our two-faced president - Obama secretly sold bunker-buster bombs to Israel

i can't believe there was yet ANOTHER republican debate last night and it's still more than 13 months until the election... supposedly romney bested perry but, ferchrissake, who the hell cares...? bachmann, romney, perry and, yes, obama... they're all out there, competing for our attention while our bought-and-paid-for media keep trying to get us to believe it all means something...

meanwhile, the current white house occupant has once again demonstrated that his constituency is by no means the american people but rather the defense industry, israel and anyone who can put the right amount of money on the table...

from the daily beast...

In an exclusive story to be published Monday on growing military cooperation between the two allies, U.S. and Israeli officials tell Newsweek that the GBU-28 Hard Target Penetrators—potentially useful in any future military strike against Iranian nuclear sites—were delivered to Israel in 2009, just several months after Obama took office.

The military sale was arranged behind the scenes as Obama’s demands for Israel to stop building settlements in disputed territories were fraying political relations between the two countries in public.

The Israelis first requested the bunker busters in 2005, only to be rebuffed by the Bush administration. At the time, the Pentagon had frozen almost all U.S.-Israeli joint defense projects out of concern that Israel was transferring advanced military technology to China.

In 2007, Bush informed Ehud Olmert, then prime minister, that he would order the bunker busters for delivery in 2009 or 2010. The Israelis wanted them in 2007. Obama finally released the weapons in 2009, according to officials familiar with the still-secret decision.

James Cartwright, the Marine Corps general who served until August as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Newsweek the military chiefs had no objections to the sale. Rather, Cartwright said, there was a concern about “how the Iranians would perceive it,” and “how the Israelis might perceive it.” In other words, would the sale be seen as a green light for Israel to attack Iran’s secret nuclear sites one day?

do you think any of this will be a discussion topic over at barackobama.com...? me neither...

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The ongoing tragedy that is Afghanistan

brave new films via information clearing house...



and the reason that this is news you won't see on traditional news media is because it's truth that those who think they are in the best position to decide what we should and should not know have decided that we SHOULDN'T know about it...

glenn greenwald in salon, again via information clearing house...

The Bush-defending Right continues to insist, and huge numbers of Americans continue to believe, that the brutal abuses of Abu Ghraib were isolated and aberrational, the rogue crimes of a few low-level soldiers who were punished. These photos would prove that to be a lie. But no matter. For exactly that reason -- because they would expose the horrible truth of what we actually did -- these photos must be suppressed in the name of containing anti-American anger. Why should that reasoning be confined to suppression of the photos? Shouldn't it extend to information that is far more likely to inflame anti-American hatred, such as what we are really doing in Afghanistan? Isn't it best if the truth is just kept from us and the government suppresses it all so that we don't look bad in the eyes of the world? Isn't that obviously where this mentality leads -- and is already leading?

oh, and btw, evidently the worst revelations are yet to come...

raw story, AGAIN via information clearing house...

A crucial CIA Inspector General’s report from May 2004 is expected to reveal some long-hidden truths about the Bush administration’s use of torture.

[...]

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow [interviewed] Newsweek's Michael Isikoff . . .

[...]

“There are three key questions to look for,” Isikoff explained. “Were there harsh interrogations that began before the … legal authorizations? … Did they go beyond what was authorized? … Did it go beyond just finding out about possible plots against the United States to provide other information, such as supplying possible evidence that could be used to justify the war in Iraq?”

Isikoff noted that there are footnotes in the torture memos already released which “quote from the Inspector General’s report that what was actually done went beyond what was authorized — that how waterboarding was conducted, the frequency with which it was conducted, and the manner in which it was conducted was beyond what the CIA told the Justice Department it was going to do when the Justice Department authorized the technique.”

Isikoff emphasized, however, that almost none of this information is being released voluntarily. It’s being slowly pried out through Freedom of Information Act requests, most of them filed by the ACLU, and “it’s become trench warfare — document by document.”

“The CIA and the intelligence community has pushed back hard,” Isikoff stressed. “People in the intelligence community never wanted this stuff out to begin with.”

can't we get going on war crimes trials for the criminals who perpetrated this mess...? oh, i forgot... we now have NEW criminals continuing to perpetrate the same goddam mess...

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Spreading lies about Obama by withholding the truth

newsmax emails regularly land in my spam folder... i occasionally read them for giggles and grins... mostly i just delete them as an inordinate number are ads for miracle cures and get-rich-quick schemes, stuff that seriously detracts from newsmax' already sub-zero credibility quotient...

however, here's a great example of how that odious site distorts the news... check the headline...

Poll: 11% Believe Obama Is Muslim

now, check the article...

A new Newsweek poll out this weekend shows Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama may face serious obstacles in the upcoming general election.

Many Americans aren't even sure of Obama's religion.

Asked to identify his religion, 58 percent of respondents correctly said Obama was a Christian. But a surprising 11 percent said he was a Muslim. And 22 percent said they did not know what his religion was.

Almost one-fifth of white Democratic voters polled also said they had an unfavorable opinion of Obama because of his name.

Apparently, such bias is having an effect on Obama's chances to secure the presidency. Though the Democrats seemingly have significant landscape advantages this year with Bush's approval ratings in the tank and a weakening economy,

Obama ties McCain in the poll, 46 percent to 46 percent.

ok... ya with me so far...? now, let's take a look at how the above information is presented in the actual newsweek article...

the following is from the first two paragraphs...

Race is a difficult subject to talk and write about. Although the blogosphere is rarely shy, mainstream journalists often tread lightly for fear of giving offense or indulging in stereotypes. Political candidates sometimes slyly play the race card, but rarely overtly. Not eager to call attention to race as an issue, the Obama campaign plays it down as a factor in the election. But if an Obama adviser were writing an honest memo to the candidate, here's how it might read:

The good news is that you have all but won the nomination. The bad news, if we are willing to face reality, is that the country—some parts of it, anyway—may not be ready to elect a black president of the United States.

nine, VERY lengthy paragraphs in to the article, we read this...

The Internet has been a sluice for lies and distortions about your religion and background. It is widely and falsely rumored that you are Muslim (in the NEWSWEEK Poll, 11 percent of voters believe you are); that you chose to be sworn in to the Senate using a Qur'an rather than a Bible, and that you refuse to place your hand over your heart for the singing of the national anthem because, you are imagined to have said, "the anthem conveys a warlike message." As a recent post on Politico.com points out, there is a "Genealogy of Barack Hussein Obama" making the Web rounds, helpfully illustrated by pictures of your dark-complexioned relatives dressed in African garb. The message is not subtle: it says that Barack Obama is not a "real American."

no mention whatsoever in the newsmax story about "lies and distortions"...

let's see how the "muslim rumor" was treated in the original newsweek poll article...

here's paragraph four from the five paragraph story...

Confusion over Obama's religious background may also be hindering his ability to attract white support. Asked to name Obama's faith, 58 percent of participants said Christian (the correct answer), compared with 11 percent who answered Muslim, 22 percent who did not know and 9 percent who said something else.

not that we didn't know this, but newsmax really sucks...

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The pairing of Markos Moulitsas and Karl Rove

how very interesting... i no sooner post my admittedly very snarky comment about markos moulitsas jointly appearing at newsweek with karl rove (see previous post), than i stumble across this from radar online...

Time magazine said nothing publicly about Rove's arrival at Newsweek, but a well-placed source told me that Bob Barnett (every Washington literati's favorite lawyer, including Bill Clinton) had traveled to the Time-Life building on Sixth Avenue to offer Rove's services before Newsweek snared them. Time's editors apparently felt the cost/benefit analysis wouldn't be in their favor if they embraced the man who has done more than anyone to keep the spirit of Joe McCarthy alive and well in American politics. (Read Joshua Green's definitive profile from the Atlantic in 2004.) "Time thought this wouldn't be like hiring George Stephanopoulos," my source explained. "They think Karl is essentially like an unindicted coconspirator in a whole string of felonies."

this just serves to strengthen my view that the pairing of markos and karl offers us a great deal to think about...

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Front page ridicule at Daily Kos

yeah, but what would you expect...? i'm no big fan of john zogby... as a matter of fact, i basically don't give a good goddam about john zogby... i'm also cool on alex jones... he has some interesting things to say, but i only treat his stuff as i treat anything else that comes at me from any media source these days, which is with a shrug and and attitude of, "yeah, ok, maybe so, maybe no..."

yesterday, i saw the results of the zogby blind phone poll that dhinmi references in his front-page kos post, a poll that showed ron paul with a substantial lead, and i noted that the poll had been "commissioned" by jones productions which, i immediately assumed, must be alex jones' outfit, which indeed it was... "interesting," i thought to myself, and then proceeded to forget all about it - until i just read dhinmi's post...

Knowing that Zogby has a horrible reputation for presenting dubious results that support the dubious claims of his rightwing clients, but without disclosing his conflicts of interest, I decided to look in to this so-called "media company" that commissioned the poll. It has numerous media outlets; in fact, at one of its flagship outlets, they are currently touting their poll results.

That’s right, John Zogby is polling for Ron Paul supporter and conspiracy theorist entrepreneur Alex Jones.

I say Ron Paul supporter because, in addition to pushing Ron Paul all over his various websites—including prisonplanet.com—he’s also contributed $2,300 to Paul’s campaign, the maximum contribution allowed for a primary campaign. This is a fact that Zogby apparently doesn’t feel compelled to divulge, and its something reporters and news outlets seldom worry about, treating Zogby as if he’s as non-partisan as truly non-partisan operations like Gallup, Pew and the Field Poll.

But this isn’t just some simply a case of doing a poll for a candidate’s supporter and not revealing the conflict. Alex Jones is possibly the greatest trafficker in crackpot conspiracies in America. For instance, through Alex Jones, you can learn about the occult empire running the planet, you can learn about the bloodlines of the Illuminati, you can learn the truth about global warming, that it’s a ruse to bring about one-world government, and all of this will be obvious to you once you begin to use Biblical prophesy to foresee world events.

i am sick and tired of ridicule as a tactic for dismissing anything and everything that doesn't fit within the standard boundaries that are constantly being defined and re-defined on daily kos, a supposedly "open," "liberal," "progressive," "democratic" "community"...... i am no fan of zogby and i am no fan of alex jones, but, i will tell you something, i am at the point now in my information gathering and information processing where I BELIEVE EVERYTHING AND I BELIEVE NOTHING, and that includes people like dhinmi, ridiculing and summarily rejecting anything that doesn't fit within his (i'm assuming he's a "he") worldview... imho, daily kos has been so choked up with groupthink, it's becoming hard to stomach... there's a reason markos moulitsas was invited to contribute to newsweek with karl rove... think about it...

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Your chances of getting killed or kidnapped in Baghdad as an unprotected Westerner? One hundred percent.

cenk uygur in daily kos...

We were talking to Newsweek's correspondent in Baghdad, Babak Dehghanpisheh, on Friday's show. I asked him if a Westerner, journalists or otherwise, could walk around in Baghdad unprotected by the military. He said it would be "suicidal."

I don't really know what I expected. I knew it was dangerous and I suspected that no Westerner went outside of the Green Zone without protection, but I didn't get the sense of how perilous it was until we talked to Dehghanpisheh.

So, I followed up by asking him if being harmed was a certainty if you were unprotected in Baghdad. He answered that your chances of getting killed or kidnapped in Baghdad if you were an unprotected Westerner was "one hundred percent."

whaddaya think of THEM odds, bucko...?

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"If he didn't act, it would have caused a fracture with the vice president."

michael isikoff, writing in newsweek, on bush extending clemency for scooter libby...

"I'm not sure Bush had a choice," says one of the advisers. "If he didn't act, it would have caused a fracture with the vice president."

i had to pick my jaw up off the floor when i read that sentence... could any statement given by anyone possibly be more crystal clear as to who is really acting as president of the united states...? it clearly is not george w. bush...

(thanks to raw story...)

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Our dumbed-down, doped-up, shopping-addicted, celebrity-obsessed, IGNORANT citizens

points to consider...

• 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?" **

• [A] majority of people couldn't identify Saudi Arabia as the country of origin of most of the 9/11 hijackers, even given the question in multiple choice format. 20% answered Iraq, while 14% believed the hijackers came from Iran.

• 89% of Americans are unable to name the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

** now, check THIS...

Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001?

	Yes	No	Don't Know
Current Total	41	50	9
Trends
9/30-10/2/04	36	51	13
9/2-3/04	42	44	14
1/29-30/04	49	39	12
9/18-19/03	47	37	16

WTF...?!?!?

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"A system called 'democracy' now gives peasants something called 'the vote'”

newsweek's howard fineman on bush's suicide mission on immigration policy...

Though I’ve never heard him use the term, my guess is that George W. Bush sees himself as a hacendado, an estate owner in Old Mexico.

That would give him a sense of Southwestern noblesse, duty-bound not just to work “his” people, but to protect them as well.

His advisor, Carlo Rove, has explained that a system called “democracy” now gives peasants something called “the vote.” It would be shrewd, Rove said, for hacendados to grant their workers’ citizenship.

That’s the best explanation I have for why Bush is in the midst of what may be a suicide mission on immigration policy—embarrassing for him and ruinous for his party.

fineman nails it with the "us vs. them" thinking, but fails completely to point out just who has been pouring gasoline on that fire virtually every day since 9/11...

As always, conservatives, who thrive on alienation, are spoiling for a fight. Now they have found it. Among the branch of conservatism fixed on “Us v Them” thinking, the enemy for decades was Communism. After the fall of The Wall, the “neocons” found a replacement Them in jihadist Islam. The old America-Firsters—what we used to call “isolationists,” who distrust foreign commitments—now have a homeland Them, in the form of 12-20 million illegal immigrants, most from Mexico.

i would hope george would feel free to embark on as many of these "suicide missions" as he cares to... the sooner he succeeds, the better off the country and the rest of the world will be...

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"The Bush presidency is perilously close to flatlining"

so says howard fineman in newsweek... there must be something we can do to help it along...

Here's a startling question people are already posing: will Bush be asked to speak [at the next GOP convention]? "There will be angst-ridden discussion, but yes, you have to do it," says [Rich Galen, a GOP analyst]. [Tony Fabrizio, a GOP pollster] disagrees: "If they're smart, no. Especially if things don't change in Iraq, we'll have the problem the Democrats had in 1968 with Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam. The question becomes: where do we hide the president?"

if my fantasy comes true, bush won't BE president when the republican convention rolls around next year, and there won't be a problem...

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Ten more years in Iraq

newsweek's right... the presidential candidates either do not know about this or they don't WANT to know about this... i hope to hell this hits the national media big-time...

In For the Long Haul

The Petraeus plan will have U.S. forces deployed in Iraq for years to come. Does anybody running for president realize that?

[...]

As Democrats and Republicans back home try to outdo each other with quick-fix plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and funds, what few people seem to have noticed is that Gen. David Petraeus’s new “surge” plan is committing U.S. troops, day by day, to a much deeper and longer-term role in policing Iraq than since the earliest days of the U.S. occupation. How long must we stay under the Petraeus plan? Perhaps 10 years. At least five.

[...]

“We’re putting down roots,” says Philip Carter, a former U.S. Army captain who returned last summer from a year of policing and training in the hot zone around Baquba. “The Americans are no longer willing to accept failure in order to put Iraqis in the lead. You can’t let the mission fail just for the sake of diplomacy.”

[...]

[An] Army expert in irregular warfare notes that insurgencies take on average 10 years to defeat. And while technically we’re about four years into this one, the Pentagon was in such denial for so long about confronting the Iraqi insurgency—and wasted time on so many errant alternatives—that America may be at square one in fighting it, or possibly even “in negative numbers,” this expert says.

this has to be the most dismal piece of news i've read in a long time... it confirms everything i've thought was the case... we're in iraq permanently, and that's been the intention all along...

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