Republican lies

As oil and wheat prices skyrocket, banks quite literally teeter on the brink of collapse, our soldiers keep dying, and the US deficit keeps on climbing, we may sometimes forget the monumental blunder that got us into this mess: the invasion of Iraq.

This is the number one drain on our economy, the number one reason for high prices and the number one reason the international alliance that supported American after 9/11 now barely speaks to us.

The Iraq Blunder is one of the biggest blunders ever in American History...and yet the George Bush/John McCain/Joe Lieberman axis of blunders STILL thinks we should be occupying Iraq for eternity.

But the one, single question that no Republican has ever been able to answer is just why did we ever invade in the first place. Why did we invade, what are our goals, what is our exit strategy? No answer from Bush. No answer from McCain. No answer from Lieberman.

No answer because there IS no answer. Every single excuse they ever gave us for invading Iraq proved to be a lie. I was one of those who, at the time they were making their case to the world for invasion, was dead certain they were lying. My knowledge of history and politics, everything I knew about the Middle East and Islam told me their excuses were lies. Those of us who saw through their lies were proven right. This morning I was reminded of this, on the eve of the 5th year anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq Blunder, that I was right.

It is now official. According to a study done by the Center for Public Integrity, the Bush adminsitration, including Bush himself, Colin Powell, Cheney and many of Bush's top advisors, made over 930 demonstrably false statements in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.

I knew when they were justifying the invasion that it was a pack of lies. Too many statements just didn't make sense, like trying to connect al-Qaeda (fanatical Sunni), Iraq (secular), and Iran (Shi'a who hate both al-Qaeda and Iraq). Or their claims that Iraq was developing sophisticated weapons when the first Iraq War and the UN blockade had basically eliminated the Iraqi airforce and famed tank corps. Nothing they were telling us made sense to me. Well, that was because they really were lies.

From the survey:

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

From Brave New Films comes a round up of Fox News lies and attacks of Barack Obama...put into the context of Bill O'Reilly's assault and battery of an Obama staffer:

Bill O'Reilly is a violent, irrational sleaze and Fox News is nothing but a Republican propoganda machine that is MORE than willing to lie at will.

When Bush lied about Iraq's WMD program so we could invade, one man called foul: Ambassador Joe Wilson who KNEW Bush was lying and said so. For his loyalty to the truth, his wife, a CIA agent, was punished by having her identity leaked to the media.

Larry Kissell, who probably won the NC-8 Congressional race but was cheated of his victory by Republican fraud, has invited Ambassador Joe Wilson to come to Charlotte, NC to speak in September. Here are the details from Larry Kissell:

Being willing to stand up and tell the truth, regardless of the consequences, is heroic. Unfortunately, we don't see too many heros in politics these days. I'm proud to tell you that Ambassador Joe Wilson, someone who has truly stood up to defend our Constitution as well as his family, is coming to campaign for us in Charlotte.

Please help me in welcoming Ambassador Wilson to Charlotte, NC September 22 for a fundraising reception. Ambassador Wilson is the author of the July 2003 New York Times Op-Ed piece "What I Didn't Find in Africa" and the memoir "The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir."

See on-line for details and advanced tickets.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Congressman John Spratt and I are hosting the evening.

Remember when Bush told us that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qaeda? Well I was one of those who was saying back then that was impossible. Hussein, a secularist who spent a fair amount of time torturing and oppressing the religious extremists of Iraq, and the religious extremists of al-Qaeda who spent a fair amount of time killing and oppressing secularists, had nothing in common. I spoke out as much as possible saying that Bush was lying. And, in the end, the only link between Iraq and al-Qaeda was al-Qaeda support for one of the anti-Hussein Kurdish groups. Bush lied to get us into a war we never should have been in and look where it has taken us.

Well, it's happening again as Bush is trying to expand the war into Iran. This comes from Guysen Israel News:

The American Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns has said that Iran was transferring arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan. He added that talks regarding new sanctions against Tehran would start in the UN in a few weeks. (Guysen.Isra×›l.News)

No. Iran is NOT transferring arms to the Taliban. The Taliban is a group of Sunni fanatics linked to al-Qaeda who have spent a great deal of time oppressing and killing Shi'ites in Afghanistan. Iran is a Shi'a theocracy that would love to see the Shi'a of Afghanistan independent of the Sunnis of Afghanistan, including the Taliban. After 9/11 I felt that one of our best strategies would have been to work with Iran to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban because if there is one nation on earth that hates al-Qaeda as much as America it is Iran. Instead Bush has done his best to prove correct the accusations that America is conducting a crusade against all Islam by picking fights with the most prominent secularist (Saddam Hussein), the most prominent Shi'a extremists (Iran) and the most prominent Sunni extremists (al-Qaeda and the Taliban), all of whom hate eachother as much as they hate America.

One of the most disgusting tactics the Republicans have used is exploiting the 9/11 attacks for their own gains. As my wife (when she was 8 months pregnant) yelled at Republican delegates to the Republican Convention in 2004, "Shame on you for turning our tragedy into a photo op!" The delegates were none too pleased being chased down the street by a very pregnant woman accusing them of exploiting our tragedy. I was in Manhattan when those planes hit... I heard them hit, though it was only later I realized what I had heard. My wife was in the subway right under the WTC when the first plane hit. That first plane also instantly took the life of a co-worker's spouse. So 9/11 is very personal for me, as it is for many Americans. When the Republicans twist it for their personal gain, I resent it.

Well, as I reported yesterday, Rudy Giuliani (the man despised by the firefighters who were the TRUE heroes of 9/11) is the latest Republican to use this disgusting tactic. Not only was Giuliani's claim that only a Republican can prevent a terrorist attack a disgusting exploitation of a national tragedy, but it is demonstrably wrong. Clinton's administration prevented the millenium attacks. He also warned the nation that al-Qaeda was going to attack again. Bush's administration ignored these warnings and the 9/11 attacks happened on HIS watch. Giuliani is wrong. Republicans have failed America and they continue to fail America as we escalate in Iraq while Osama bin Laden, the man who planned the attacks on us, goes free.

From time to time we have Republican propogandists come by and regurgitate warmed over (not even fresh!) Republican talking points. When the complete falsehood of their claims is pointed out, they almost never respond, simply waiting around for another chance to regurgitate the pre-digested pap Rush Limbaugh or Bill "bomb America" O'Rielly have fed to them.

Our main pet regurgitator has been "MrMe," and his latest is here. Interestingly in that latest rant he seems to be claiming some kind of censorship around here even though we have been approving his comments for months and months despite their complete lack of substance. And, ironically, if he simply signed up he wouldn't need our approval to post, but that task seems to have evaded his abilities. So, instead, if we don't approve his comments fast enough, he claims censorship.

But that point aside, the simple fact is he is typical of a whole group of apologists for the right wing extremists and very little of what he says has a grain of truth. It isn't even traditional Republican conservativism he supports because traditional Republican conservativism didn't include the idea of giving the Federal government the power to push aside all states rights, Constitutional rights and checks and balances on the President to allow the President to run the nation like a dictator. But the current worshippers of the Bush Idol are more than willing to see unprecedented power concentrated in the hands of Bush.

Mark Foley, Republican Congressman, solicits sex from a minor. And the Republican leadership did nothing. And now we find they are lying through their teeth about it.

Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert and Tom Reynolds all claimed they had known nothing about Foley's sleaze. They were innocent as could be. Then we learn from one of Reynold's aides that Reynolds had known months before they had admitted they had known, months before the news broke. They knew for months and did nothing to report Foley's illegal and immoral behavior.

Now we learn the lies and cover-ups are even worse than we thought. We now learn that Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., confronted Foley about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000. That means Foley has been a sitting Republican Congressman for SIX YEARS after the Republican party KNEW he was soliciting sex from minors. From Salon.com:

October 09,2006 | WASHINGTON -- A Republican member of Congress confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his Internet communications with teenagers as early as 2000, according to a newspaper report.

The report in the Washington Post pushes back by at least five years the date when a member of Congress acknowledges learning of the Florida Republican's questionable behavior toward pages.

It came as the Republican leadership attempted to present a united front on the congressional page scandal that has rocked the GOP a month before midterm elections and put House Speaker Dennis Hastert on shaky ground.