Michael Moore a truther

Who would have guessed?

MOORE: Well, I've had a number of firefighters tell me over the years, and since Fahrenheit 9/11, that they heard these explosions, that they believe there is much more to the story then we've been told. I don't think the official investigations have told us the complete truth. They haven't even told us half the truth. And so I support, and I hope, you know, if there's a new administration or somebody could open up a new investigation of this before we get too far away from it, to find out the whole truth.

Sick.

The Truther View

Rosie is on her high horse again, and this time she's getting desperate. Rosie's not really been known for her accurate recollection of past events and statements (such as calling the US and the US military "terrorists") but she has come through for the View in one small way. Apparently she has booked conspiracy theorists and the 9/11 "Truthers" who created the laughably fictional "documentary" called Loose Change to appear on the View. Apparently true to her desire to talk about her insane conspiracy theories, she has yet to book a few individuals whose intellectual prowess on the matter tower over Rosie and the Truthers like my foot over a spider - the people at Popular Mechanics.

If Rosie actually does an entire show on how 9/11 is a government conspiracy, it'll be long past time for ABC to pull the plug on the whole thing. But the idiocy will be fun to watch...

Oh, and in case you have a few free moments and want to get some interesting information on conspiracy theories, see the second part of Bill Whittle's essay Seeing the Unseen.

Someone Call Rosie!

Quick! Someone tell Rosie "truther" O'Donnell that steel losses strength when it is surrounded by a 3,000 degree fire. Just see the story today when an overpass in San Francisco collapsed due to heat stress caused by an intense fire. So much for 9/11 conspiracy theories...

Rosie O'Donnell: idiot, "truther"

Rosie O'Donnell has been an embarrassment to human beings for quite awhile, but her recent antics on The View, as a desperate attempt to get ratings for the show, have trumped any of her past insane remarks.

Let's not forget her mockery of Chinese people, her concerns about the mastermind of 9/11 being "tortured", and her belief that "radical Christianity" is just as dangerous as radical Islam. Now we've moved into the purview of complete nonsense - it turns out that Rosie is a truther.

For those of you who don't know what "truthers" are, they are insane individuals among us that believe the terrorists attacks of 9/11 were a government (a.k.a George W. Bush) orchestrated conspiracy to instill fear, make war, etc. Not only do truthers insult the memories of those who died on 9/11, but they exist in a world where facts and reality are irrelevant. Rosie, on her blog this week, claims that the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11 was a government plot. Yes, she apparently was serious.

The best and easiest way to annihilate 9/11 conspiracy theories is to read Popular Mechanics, or simply to watch the History Channel. This particular show describes why WTC7 collapsed on 9/11 hours after the twin towers did. Not only was the building on fire for over 7 hours, it was built as a cantilever over an electricity substation and diesel fuel tanks. After burning for hours, the cantilever structure gave way and the building collapsed. No controlled demolition; no conspiracy; no "truth" that is missing.

The other problem with truthers is that facts and reality are, again, not really important. What's important is that the government is out to get you.

Which brings to light the question that if the government had orchestrated the largest conspiracy of all time, why do they allow people to point it out?

Stuffing documents in your pants has never been so easy

Remember Sandy Berger? He was Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor, and is even better known for raiding the National Archives and stealing key Clinton Administration documents by stuffing them in his coat, briefcase, and pants.

The more the story is evaluated, the sweeter Berger's misdemeanor plea deal looks. He has only admitted to stealing 5 documents, and since the documents are classified and uninventoried there is no way to tell how many documents he actually stole. Also, since Mr. Berger's intention was to destroy said documents, there is no reason to believe any originals remain.

Finally, now we have unequivocal proof that Berger indeed stole documents with the intention of destroying them. The staff at the Archives, finally wise to Berger's shenanigans, finally numbered each document and replaced one that was missing with a copy. Berger promptly stole that document, too. Considering Berger removed files pertaining to the Clinton administration's handling of terrorism and Osama bin Laden before 9/11, Berger's philandering is more serious than a misdemeanor and if Americans died as a result of his tampering the charge of treason would be more appropriate - for himself and those who employed him.

Update: Why doesn't the news media care about this story?

Bias, Bias, Bias

In the news recently:

Minnesota Imams were removed from a US Airways flight. The Imams cried foul, discrimination, "Islamophobia."

The AP reported that 6 Iraqis were drug from a Mosque and burned to death. However, the AP's single source has been discredited.

Well, it turns out that the push-back is coming hard and strong. First, it has just been revealed that, in a manner similar to the bogus Minneapolis cab controversy, the Imams completely orchestrated the controversy. They had one-way tickets. They sat in 9/11 hijacker-similar seats. They checked no luggage. They were praying loudly - but not at a regular prayer time. They were praising Saddam Husein and Osama bin Laden. It seems that these religious authorities are now creating ways through which to be enraged.

Also, the Associated Press has lost any semblance of credibility. It seems that not only can the "burning Iraqi's" story not be corroborated, the non-Iraqi police officer "Jamil Hussain" won't show his face - if he even exists. The AP's response: they are happy with their reporting. What reporting?

And finally, a Virginia Tech professor has just completed a book detailing the old media's reporting of the President's speeches for the past six years. It seems that the media has no interest in reporting reality, but instead pushes their anti-Bush agenda. In summary:

In short, if someone were relying only on the mainstream media for information, they would have no idea what the president actually said. It was as if the press were reporting on a different speech.

Not really surprising...

Ka-pow!

It looks like I spoke too soon. I saw this link on Drudge yesterday, but CNN had conveniently removed it. (I wonder why?) It seems that Nancy Pelosi, not content to completely annihilate her party before January, gave it one more kick in the head:

Asked by a reporter about how “President Bush today blamed the surge of violence in Iraq on al Qaeda,” incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded with a disjointed answer about how “the 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the President is resorting to it again."

What? Two things here: 1) the 9/11 Commission said that there was no link between 9/11 and Iraq, but made explicit the connections between Iraq and al Qaeda. 2) Anyone who thinks al Qaeda is not operating in Iraq now is going to have some trouble going along with Democratic talking points (and reality).

Pelosi is making it too easy. Does she not realize what she's doing to her party?

The Continuing Implosion

I didn't think it was possible for the Democrats to self-destruct before January, but the meltdown still continues.

Not only is Charles Rangel begging for the draft as a political stunt, and pulling a Kerry-esque insult of the military, while Nancy Pelosi is supporting losers for House leadership posts while rejecting old enemies out of spite, but now the Democrats have thrown red meat to the press. Even the old media can't ignore this one. And when you go back on promises made, this will be your headline:

Democrats Reject Key 9/11 Panel Suggestion

Whoops. The Democrats, like the Republicans before them, don't want to reorganize congressional committees to reallocate power from the Armed Services Committees to Intelligence Committees. It's an age old power play, and the Democrats are refusing to play. Does this really matter to politics? I don't think so, but the Democratic leadership needs to realize that all publicity in politics is not good publicity. Until next time...

Ms. Cheney vs. the Liberal Media

Lynne Cheney was on CNN with Wolf Blitzer tonight and was the victim of a typical liberal media ambush. Wolf, instead of asking about her new best selling children's book, decided to attempt to repeat Democratic talking points, and claim the Vice President is in bad health.

However, Mrs. Cheney came prepared, as Wolf later admitted. Here are a few relevant sections:

LC: You made a point last night of a man who had a bookstore in London, where radical Islamists gathered, who was in Afghanistan when the Taliban were there, who went to Pakistan. I think that you might be a little careful before you declare this as a person with clean hands.

WB: You’re referring to the CNN Broken Government special…

LC: I certainly am.

WB: This was the one that John King reported on last night.

LC: You know, right there, right there, Wolf. Broken Government. Now what kind of stance is that? Here we are, we’re a country where we have been mightily challenged over the past six years. We’ve been through 9/11. We’ve been through Katrina. The President and the Vice President inherited a recession. We’re a country where the economy is healthy. That’s not broken. This government has acted very well. We’ve had tax cuts that are responsible for our healthy economy. We’re a country that was attacked five years ago. We haven’t been attacked since. What this government has done is effective. That’s not broken government. So you know, I shouldn’t let media bias surprise me, but I worked at CNN once. I watched the program last night…

WB: You were a co-host of Crossfire.

LC: …and I was troubled.

WB: All right. Well, that was probably the purpose, to get people to think, to get people to discuss these issues, because there are a lot of conservatives…

LC: All right, all right, Wolf. I’m here to talk about my book. But if you want to talk about distortion…

WB: We’ll talk about your book.

LC: Right. But what is CNN doing running terrorist tape of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I thought Duncan Hunter asked you a very good question, and you didn’t answer it. Do you want us to win?

WB: The answer, of course, is we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There’s no doubt about that. You think we want terrorists to win?

LC: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?

WB: With all due respect, with all due respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.

LC: Oh, Wolf…

WB: This is reporting the news, which is what we do. We’re not partisan…

LC: Where did you get the film?

WB: We got the film…look, this is an issue that has been widely discussed, this is an issue that we reported on extensively. We make no apologies for showing that. That was a very carefully considered decision, why we did that. And I think, and I think, of your…

LC: Well, I think it’s shocking.

Go ahead and read it all. As a few commentators have said, without taking credit from Lynne Cheney, a lot of these political pundits (a.k.a journalists) are simply not too smart. Using a credible and thought-out argument truly puts them in their place. Wolf's whiny little diatribe at the end about Mrs. Cheney being "armed" is representative of his complete bewilderment in not being able to verbally and intellectually dominate her. I guess Wolf should start listening to people that he disagrees with.

John Conyers - Idiot

Do you remember Democrat John Conyers? He is the representative from Michigan interviewed by the treasonous Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11. In the movie, he claims that he did not read the text of the Patriot Act, and that is why many bills pass through congress.

Now, if the Democrats take control of congress, Conyers is in line to be the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and he plans to bring impeachment charges against President Bush if he gets the chance.

Can he be removed from office for not reading the laws that he votes on? I suppose not.

Delusions of Objectivity

CNN's Jack Cafferty has been given a six-part special to look at "Broken Government." In the weeks leading up to the election Jack is doing a "news" special that describes how:

We're being bled to death, literally and figuratively in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have no border security to speak of, no port security fives year after 9/11, Social Security and Medicare well on their way to insolvency. Our national debt is staggering.

China is kicking our butt. Like I said, had enough? Our leaders lie to us and steal from us, and do it all with a straight face. They don't think we get it. I think we do. I honestly think the upcoming midterm elections will be breathtaking in the message that deliver to Washington. It's my fervent hope that every single incumbent on the ballot will lose. It's time to start over.

This is a "news" story. Did you get that - a "news" story.

If anyone still thinks that CNN is a serious and non-biased non-partisan news agency they need to take a deep breath of reality.

Who is responsible for 9/11?

You'll have to watch all three parts to find out...

George Bush the Dictator

New York Times writer Robert Harris has written a hilariously alarmist column today equating ancient Rome's move towards dictatorship to the current war on terror. If you read Harris' frightening tale of good intentions leading to unintended dictatorial consequences and believe it then you truly may want to see a doctor.

First, Harris equates the attack and burning of the ancient city of Ostia to the 9/11 attacks. Ostia was attacked and burned by "terrorist" pirates that, when Pompey the Great was given more executive powers (akin to a dictator) he crushed them easily.

The fallacies here are numerous. First, comparing Ostia to 9/11 is inherently foolish. It's difficult to connect such an obscure historical event to the worst terrorist attack on US soil, and it is further difficult to compare al Qaeda to the loose band of pirates responsible for the destruction of Ostia who where then easily and utterly defeated.

Harris also tries to connect the Roman senate's law that granted Pompey ultimate executive power to the terrorist detainee bill that passed our senate last week. Claiming that the bill takes away the terrorists' rights of habeas corpus (since when do we give enemy combatants those rights?) he compares Rome to his belief in America's supposed descent into authoritarianism.

This scare article is laughable at best. I feel bad for liberals and the amount of cognitive dissonance they are going to experience when Bush steps down from the Presidency in less than two years from now. Indeed, the very problem with liberal's irrational fear and hatred of George W. Bush is one of their most ridiculous traits and one that, in Harris' case, removes all need to take one seriously.

The NIE, and a message from Mr. Karzai

Recently, a portion of the National Intelligence Estimate from February was leaked to the press with the intention of manipulating the upcoming national elections. Bush declassified the document today, proving that the national hysteria it produced was based on lies and distortions. The NIE did not claim that the war in Iraq had created more terrorists - in fact, it says exactly the opposite.

At a joint press conference today, Presidnet Karzai of Afghanistan had something to say to us about this situation:

KARZAI: Ma'am, before I go to the remarks by my brother, President Musharraf, terrorism was hurting us way before Iraq or September 11. The president mentioned some examples of it.

These extremist forces were killing people in Afghanistan and around for years, closing schools, burning mosques, killing children, uprooting vineyards with vine trees, grapes hanging on them, forcing populations to poverty and misery.

They came to America on September 11, but they were attacking you before September 11 in other parts of the world.

KARZAI: We are a witness in Afghanistan as to what they are and how they can hurt. You are a witness in New York.

Do you forget people jumping off the 80th floor or 70th floor when the planes hit them? Can you imagine what it will be for a man or a woman to jump off that high?

Who did that? And where are they now? And how do we fight them, how do we get rid of them, other than going after them? Should we wait for them to come and kill us again?

That's why we need more action around the world, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, to get them defeated. Extremism, their allies, terrorists and the likes of them.

Are you listening?

Watch out for the right-wingers!

Howard Dean, who has the tendency to reach impressive new heights of rhetorical Republican-bashing, outdoes even himself in this latest installment. He uses the term "right-wing" at least eight times, not to mention the times "conservative" or "republican propaganda" is used in the context that it is actually controlling the world.

What does Howard say?

...the problem until now has been our willingness to stand up and fight for them in the face of fear mongering, bullying and intimidation from the other side.

...

We're sick of playing defense against a Republican leadership that uses national security to scare people to win elections. We're not going to be pushed around, spun, and defamed by right-wing extremists and those whom they use to disseminate their propaganda.

...and on and on and on. Howard's emails have passed their usual hilarity - and they've gone into nutty overdrive.

Also included in Howard's latest lunacy is 1) a claim that FoxNews is manipulating it's coverage of Bill Clinton's meltdown; and 2) that the Democrats actually have a plan for national security! He mentions this Kerry-esque "plan" a number of times, but then finally lets us know about it at the end:

We will increase the size of Special Forces to destroy Osama Bin Laden and terrorist networks like al Qaeda. We will implement the bipartisan 9/11 Commission proposal to secure America's borders and ports and screen every container. And we will fully man, train, and equip our National Guard and our police, firefighters and other first responders.

Oh, right! So if the Democrats seize power they will, uh... do what exactly differently?

We still don't know.

Oh, but the right-wingers are scary, and you should vote against them.

The Democrats are all fired up!

Look out! When the truth is exposed, the Democrats get angry! Here is an email from Tom McMahon, executive director of the DNC. He is all ticked off about an ABC documentary on the Path to 9/11. Why, you may ask? Because it tells the truth - the and truth makes the democrats (and especially Bill Clinton) look bad.

Aside from the usual angry diatribes (e.g. "right-wing conservative writers", "GOP playbook of using terrorism to scare Americans", "slanderous, irresponsible fraud", etc.) Mr. McMahon is ticked about only a few specifics from this documentary:

Richard Clarke -- the counterterrorism czar for the Clinton administration, now himself a consultant to ABC News -- describes a key scene in "The Path to 9/11" as "180 degrees from what happened." In the scene, a CIA field agent places a phone call to get the go ahead to kill Osama Bin Laden, then in his sights, only to have a senior Clinton administration official refuse and hang up the phone. Sandy Berger, President Clinton's National Security Advisor, called the same scene "a total fabrication. It did not happen." And Roger Cressey, a top Bush and Clinton counterterrorism official, said it was "something straight out of Disney and fantasyland. It's factually wrong. And that's shameful."

Strange - because about four years ago I saw a special on the History Channel on the CIA's famed "Bin Laden unit" which was tasked during the Clinton administration to hunt down and kill Bin Laden. Not only did this actually happen - it happened twice. The CIA, with the help of Afghan locals, hunted Bin Laden down twice, and twice - when the call went to the White House - the order was rescinded. This is not fantasy, people - this is absolute fact. One wonders why Tom only gets fired up when ABC airs the truth of counterterrorism under Clinton, and not the History Channel?

And yes, if you were wondering, this fact is reported by the 9/11 Commission Report. And it is only slightly more shameful than George W. Bush's lack of any action whatsoever after the bombing of the USS Cole.

The Democrats don't like it when their nasty secrets are drug out into the fresh air - but it makes this aspect of this special no less true. Is the documentary a political stunt? No - but Tom's attempt to fire up the "masses" is. It's too bad the truth isn't on his side...

Americans hate their economy

What can be said for the fantastic economy we now live within?

Oh, wait - you didn't know the economy is good right now? That the national deficit is down? That unemployment is low? That in spite of September 11, the "dot-com" crash, and record gas prices, the economy has remained strong?

What can be the reason that even though the economy is good, the national press and opinion polls still report that people think the economy is bad?

Maybe you should look here to see.

Moral Equivalence

Here it is again - but this time it's as bad as I've seen it.

NewsBusters reports on the latest moral equivalence tirade by Brian Williams of NBC:

Chris Matthews: "Here we have maybe 24 people who have lived in London and England and the free world for all these years that become citizens, subjects of the Crown, and, yet, after having gotten to know us, they want to kill themselves to hurt us. Isn't that an even deeper conundrum here than the chemicals being used in these attacks?"

Brian Williams: "And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness to take one's own life -- I always tell people there are guys on our team like that, too. They're called Army Rangers and Navy Seals and the Special Forces folks and the first responders on 9/11 who went into those buildings knowing, by the way, they weren't going to come out. So we have players like that on our team."

Did you get that? Suicide bombers who blow themselves up to murder civilians are just the same as first responders on 9/11 because they both knew/know they're not going to come home alive.

Just another taste of the modern media at work.

Mainstream Conspiracy

I've posted recently on how successful revisionist history has been as of late. It seems that people all over the world wish to subvert the truth of historical events to advance their own aims, and have done so successfully, especially in the Muslim world.

I wandered over to my alma mater's newspaper's website, the good ol' Iowa State Daily, and found an article slamming 9/11 conspiracy theories. If you read the posts following the article, you'll see how stories like this really bring out the crazies. It's more than a bit scary to think people believe the government has done this to them. At the beginning of 2009, when another successful transition of power occurs between one American President and another, will some of these finally rest?

Do voters respond to anything but negative advertising?

Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has laid out a great set of priorities and started the policy debate about our country's priorities in 2008. Read here.

Although vague, I completely agree with his initial message on health care (every American needs insurance thru market reforms, not gov't programs), immigration (know who is entering, but greatly expand legal immigration) and post-9/11 foreign relations (support modern Muslim nations, secular education, modern finanical markets and human rights). I would only add to his other policy goals. Read the article, it's great. It's also important to note what he's not focused on: global warming hysteria, "two Americas," gay marriage, flag burning , and other demagoguery. This guy seems to be the real deal, and--whether you agree with his policy or not--a responsible politican.

Voters say they want an educated debate and an end to negative ads. Will voters respond by making other candidates lay out a plan like Romney has done, or will voters embrace the low road and shun enlightened discourse?