Thursday, April 06, 2006
77 TV stations aired 'fake news reports'
A study by a group that monitors the media reveals that, over a ten month span, 77 television stations from all across the nation aired video news releases without informing their viewers even once that the reports were actually sponsored content, RAW STORY has found.
One "news report" that aired on three stations relied on a video news release (VNR) produced by a PR firm on behalf of General Motors which was even apparently based on a "false claim."
Bush Event Goes Off Script
VIDEO: Bush Event Goes Off Script
This morning in Charlotte, a Bush PR event on the war on terror went off-script when a man named Harry Taylor took the microphone. Watch the video:
“‘I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration,’ Taylor said, standing in a balcony seat and looking down at Bush on stage. ‘And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself.’”
Read below for the full exchange: expand post »
Q You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you’d like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are –
THE PRESIDENT: I’m not your favorite guy. Go ahead. (Laughter and applause.) Go on, what’s your question?
Q Okay, I don’t have a question. What I wanted to say to you is that I — in my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of, nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington, including the presidency, by the Senate, and –
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: No, wait a sec — let him speak.
Q And I would hope — I feel like despite your rhetoric, that compassion and common sense have been left far behind during your administration, and I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself inside yourself. And I also want to say I really appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to speak what I’m saying to you right now. That is part of what this country is about.
THE PRESIDENT: It is, yes. (Applause.)
Q And I know that this doesn’t come welcome to most of the people in this room, but I do appreciate that.
THE PRESIDENT: Appreciate –
Q I don’t have a question, but I just wanted to make that comment to you.
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate it, thank you. Let me –
Q Can I ask a question?
THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to start off with what you first said, if you don’t mind, you said that I tap your phones — I think that’s what you said. You tapped your phone — I tapped your phones. Yes. No, that’s right. Yes, no, let me finish.
I’d like to describe that decision I made about protecting this country. You can come to whatever conclusion you want. The conclusion is I’m not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program, and I’ll tell you why. We were accused in Washington, D.C. of not connecting the dots, that we didn’t do everything we could to protect you or others from the attack. And so I called in the people responsible for helping to protect the American people and the homeland. I said, is there anything more we could do.
And there — out of this national — NSA came the recommendation that it would make sense for us to listen to a call outside the country, inside the country from al Qaeda or suspected al Qaeda in order to have real-time information from which to possibly prevent an attack. I thought that made sense, so long as it was constitutional. Now, you may not agree with the constitutional assessment given to me by lawyers — and we’ve got plenty of them in Washington — but they made this assessment that it was constitutional for me to make that decision.
I then, sir, took that decision to members of the United States Congress from both political parties and briefed them on the decision that was made in order to protect the American people. And so members of both parties, both chambers, were fully aware of a program intended to know whether or not al Qaeda was calling in or calling out of the country. It seems like — to make sense, if we’re at war, we ought to be using tools necessary within the Constitution, on a very limited basis, a program that’s reviewed constantly to protect us.
Now, you and I have a different — of agreement on what is needed to be protected. But you said, would I apologize for that? The answer — answer is, absolutely not. (Applause.)
The rest of the event transcript is here. « collapse post
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
CBS Adds Cute Face as They Dismantle News Department
 (AP) |
"I wanted to tell all of you out there who have watched the show for the past 15 years that after listening to my heart and my gut _ two things that have served me pretty well in the past _ I've decided I'll be leaving 'Today' at the end of May," she said. "I really feel as if we've become friends through the years."
24 Wis. Communities Vote for Iraq Pullout
By margins overwhelming in some places and narrow in others, voters in 24 of 32 communities approved referendums Tuesday calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."
Human rights group details new claims on CIA 'torture flights'
FRESH evidence has emerged of the brutality involved in the CIA's programme of extraordinary rendition and its use of Scottish airports as stopping-off points for aircraft involved in the controversial programme.
A report from Amnesty International alleges that detainees were abducted or handed to the CIA by friendly agencies in other countries before being "disappeared".
Monday, April 03, 2006
Portland, Oregon Air National Guard: Our planes did not cause mystery sound
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PORTLAND, Ore. - The Portland Air National Guard says they do not believe F-15 fighters are to blame for loud booms heard throughout our area on Saturday.
The Air National Guard checked Portland's flight track and determined jets were conducting training flights over the Northwest when a series of strange rumbling noises hit.
However, the two jets that broke the sound barrier were over the ocean and pointing west. That sonic boom would not have traveled more than 20 miles.
As for jets headed for Portland, the Air National Guard says they were on approach and flying far too slow to cause a boom.
"If it was us, we'll confess and make sure we look at procedures and make sure it doesn't happen again," said Captain Misti Mazzia "We care about not leaving any noise footprint on our community."
Many people on base heard the noise as well, but say it was much different than a sonic boom.
The Air National Guard will now check Seattle's flight track to see if any other jets may have been flying at the time.
April 13 2005 - Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson
Remarks by the President During Event in Honor of Thomas Jefferson's Birthday
April 12, 2001
quote:The above quote is a scarce statement of fact that is in opposition to the factually contorted semantic gymnastics on the whitehouse's website (on the internetS): "Jefferson gradually assumed leadership of the Republicans, who sympathized with the revolutionary cause in France."
"Perhaps the best verdict came from one of Jefferson's keenest admirers and sharpest critics, the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln." (continued below)
A statement like that could lead someone to be confused to the point to actually think Jefferson was a Republican.
He died on July 4, 1826.
10229 days after the death of Thomas Jefferson
The Republican Party is BORN
The facts are further clarified here:
Jackson, Michigan is the birthplace of the republican party.
The City of Jackson has a Michigan State Historical Maker (as shown in picture)
"UNDER THE OAKS
On July 6, 1854, a state convention of anti-slavery men was held in Jackson to found a new political party. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had been published two years earlier, causing increased resentment against slavery, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of May, 1854, threatened to make slave states out of previously free territories. Since the convention day was hot and the huge crowd could not be accommodated in the hall, the meeting adjourned to an oak grove on "Morgan's Forty" on the outskirts of town. Here a state-wide slate of candidates was selected and the Republican Party was born. Winning an overwhelming victory in the elections of 1854, the Republican party went on to dominate national parties throughout the nineteenth century."
Bu$h Quoting Lincoln in statement
quote:
"All honor to Jefferson, to the man who in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and at all times. And so, to embalm it there, that today and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of a reappearing tyranny and oppression." Happy birthday, Mr. Jefferson.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Of presidents and precedents
1/25/2006
Last week's lawsuit by the ACLU seeking to halt the National Security Agency's formerly secret no-warrant domestic wiretap program could, conceivably, have been filed in any U.S. district court. So why was the Eastern District of Michigan chosen as the place to fight this crucial legal battle?
Michael Steinberg, legal director of the Michigan ACLU, tells News Hits that, at least in part, this particular court was selected for "symbolic" reasons.
The symbol Steinberg refers to is a case that dates back to the 1970s, when the United States was locked in another unpopular war being run by another president whose administration displayed a frightening disregard for the Bill of Rights. The issue achieved landmark status in a trial involving John Sinclair and other members of the radical White Panther Party accused of conspiring to bomb a government building in Ann Arbor. Presiding over the case was then-U.S. District Court Judge Damon Keith.
During the trial, according to the Web site maintained by Wayne State University's Reuther Library, it was revealed that the feds had wiretapped the phone of at least one defendant without first getting a warrant.
As with the current case, the administration — Richard M. Nixon was calling the White House home back in those days — contended then that the action was needed to protect "national security." It is one of the justifications being trotted out anew by the Bush administration as it attempts to justify what many see as a clear violation of the law.
This was Keith's response to that argument:
"The contention by the Government that in cases involving 'national security' a warrantless search is not an illegal one, must be cautiously approached and analyzed. We are, after all, dealing not with the rights of one solitary defendant, but rather, we are here concerned with the possible infringement of a fundamental freedom guaranteed to all Americans. ...
"An idea which seems to permeate much of the Government's argument is that a dissident domestic organization is akin to an unfriendly foreign power and must be dealt with in the same fashion. There is great danger in an argument of this nature for it strikes at the very constitutional privileges and immunities that are inherent in United States citizenship. It is to be remembered that in our democracy all men are to receive equal and exact justice regardless of their political beliefs or persuasions. The Executive branch of our Government cannot be given the power or the opportunity to investigate and prosecute criminal violations under two different standards simply because an accused espouses views which are inconsistent with our present form of Government. ...
"Such power held by one individual was never contemplated by the framers of our Constitution and cannot be tolerated today."
As the Wayne State Web site goes on to note: "Keith ordered the government to turn over its tapes to the defendant. After Judge Keith's decision was upheld by the Supreme Court, the government responded by dropping the charges."
Steinberg says, "We're going to be relying heavily on the Keith decision in our case against the NSA."
Keith, by the way, now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. And Nixon, when we last checked, was still dead, but his law-breaking spirit seems to be alive if not well in today's White House.
Send comments to NewsHits@metrotimes.com.
