Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label media lies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media lies. Show all posts

Saturday, February 18, 2023

Today's Lügenpresse


In keeping with Daddy State Awareness, Rule 1, our friends at DumFux "News" have always bitched about how the mainstream media does nothing but lie to us.

That deafening sound of flapping wings is a shitload of chickens coming home to roost, Rupert.


‘Everything at stake here,’ billionaire founder Rupert Murdoch wrote to a top executive in November 2020, part of a cache of internal communications revealed in a $1.6 billion defamation suit.

In the weeks after the 2020 election, Fox News faced an existential crisis. The top-rated cable news network had alienated its Donald Trump-loving viewers with an accurate election night prediction for Joe Biden and was facing a terrifying ratings slide, not to mention the ire of a once-loyal president.

Concern came from the very top: “Everything at stake here,” Rupert Murdoch messaged Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott.

The billionaire founder was eager to see the Republican candidate prevail in the coming Senate runoff in Georgia — “helping any way we can,” he wrote. But he also advised Scott to keep an eye on the uptick in ratings for a smaller, more conservative channel whose election skepticism suddenly seemed to be resonating with pro-Trump viewers.

Newly released messages show Fox executives fretting that month over an uncomfortable revelation: that if they told their audience the truth about the election, it could destroy their business model.

“Getting creamed by CNN!” Murdoch wrote to Scott on Nov. 8, a day after most news organizations declared that Biden had won. “Guess our viewers don’t want to watch it.”

What Fox’s loyal viewers wanted to watch — and what Fox News was willing to do to keep them — emerged this week as a central question in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against the network by Dominion Voting Systems.

A stunning cache of internal correspondence and deposition testimony obtained by the software company and made public on Thursday in a Delaware court filing showed high-level Fox executives and on-air stars privately agonizing over the wild and false claims of a stolen election that Trump allies promoted on Fox airwaves in the weeks after the 2020 election. “Sidney Powell is lying,” prime-time star Tucker Carlson wrote to his producer about a Trump lawyer who had appeared on Fox and spewed baseless accusations. “There is NO evidence of fraud,” anchor Bret Baier wrote to one of his bosses.

The plaintiff’s lawyers argue that such messages prove Fox brass knew the claims that Dominion had “flipped” votes from Trump to Biden were untrue — but “spread and endorsed” them anyway.

But the Dominion filing also lends ammunition to their long-held argument: that Fox allowed the false claims to air because it was fearful of losing viewers to Newsmax, an ever more pro-Trump news channel.

“The texts and emails support [Dominion’s] claim that Fox was more concerned about its audience and market share than the truth concerning the 2020 presidential election,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William & Mary Law School who specializes in the First Amendment and called the breadth of the internal communications “extraordinary.”

In a statement, a Fox spokesperson said: “There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.”

Some exchanges showed Fox executives raising an alarm when journalists attempted to counter false claims from the Trump team.

On a Nov. 9 broadcast, news anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a live briefing by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, warning viewers that she was making unsubstantiated claims of fraud. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said on air. “Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue to show this.”

Executives took notice: Cavuto’s actions were communicated to senior leadership at parent company Fox Corp. as a “Brand Threat.”

Meanwhile, they kept a close eye on ratings.

“The Newsmax surge is a bit troubling — truly is an alternative universe when you watch, but it can’t be ignored,” one message from Fox News President Jay Wallace to his CEO read. “Trying to get everyone to comprehend we are on war footing.”

Later that month, Fox broadcast the entirety of a news conference featuring Powell and fellow Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani outlining their unsubstantiated case for election fraud — a performance that Murdoch dubbed “really crazy stuff,” in an email, “and damaging.”

But when Fox host Dana Perino speculated that such claims could draw a lawsuit from Dominion, Scott expressed concern in an email, saying on-air personalities couldn’t afford to “give the crazies an inch right now … they are looking for and blowing up all appearances of disrespect to the audience.”

In another message, Scott noted, “The audience feels like we crapped on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us … We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer.”

The ratings concerns turned out to be warranted. In January 2021, for the first time in 20 years, the cable network reported monthly ratings that fell behind both of its main cable news competitors, CNN and MSNBC.

As Trump refused to let up on his election fraud claims, Murdoch suggested that Fox might have the clout to push back. In early January 2021, he relayed in a message to Scott a suggestion that their three biggest prime-time stars — Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham — “should independently or together say something like ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won.’” Murdoch passed on the suggestion that such a move “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.”

But such a coordinated announcement never came. In forwarding his email to her staff, Scott added, “we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers.”

Within Fox, the messages show, many worried that the network had been hurt by two key incidents: a debate in which some conservatives believed Fox anchor Chris Wallace lobbed unfair questions to Trump; and Fox’s election night prediction that Biden would win the hotly contested state of Arizona.

Hannity wrote to Carlson and Ingraham on Nov. 12 that the combination “destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable.”

“It’s vandalism,” Carlson responded.

In a message to a colleague, Scott complained that Bill Sammon, then the head of the network’s Washington bureau, did not understand “the impact to the brand and the arrogance in calling AZ.” In a separate message, to Fox Corp. executive chair and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, she wrote that: “Viewers going through the 5 stages of grief. It’s a question of trust — the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.”

“Yes,” Murdoch replied. “But needs constant rebuilding without any missteps.”

In another message, Ron Mitchell, the network executive in charge of prime-time programming and analytics, warned that Newsmax’s brand of “conspiratorial reporting might be exactly what the disgruntled [Fox News Channel] viewer is looking for.” As a result, he added, Fox should not “ever give viewers a reason to turn us off. Every topic and guest must perform.”

Mitchell continued: “‘No unforced errors’ in content — example: Abruptly turning away from a Trump campaign news conference.”

BTW, reports of the demise of DumFux News are exaggerated - and premature. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

But hey - a guy can dream.

Friday, February 17, 2023

Drifting Towards Justice


Michigan Sec'y of State Jocelyn Benson has been making a solid point about the need to fight misinformation, saying (I'm paraphrasing here):

It's illegal to lie about a product you're trying to sell. When your candidate loses, but you yell "fraud" and "stolen election", it's really no different than some Bait-n-Switch asshole rolling back the odometers on the used cars he has for sale.


Alex Wagner - and we should be talking about coming down hard on the tiny-dick terrorists who swallow all the bullshit being peddled on wingnut media, and then threaten public officials.


Ari Melber - DumFux News may finally take it in the shorts:


But we have to keep in mind that "the liberal press", even as they start to come around a bit, will continue to pimp the Middle Ground Fallacy.

Here's NYT with what ought to be something like a bomb going off in their neighbor's basement, more or less burying the story below the fold, "headlining" it in standard 20-point font.


Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Election Fraud Claims. ‘Crazy Stuff.’

The comments, by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and others, were released as part of a defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voter Systems.

Newly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air.

The hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as others at the company, repeatedly insulted and mocked Trump advisers, including Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in text messages with each other in the weeks after the election, according to a legal filing on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox for defamation in a case that poses considerable financial and reputational risk for the country’s most-watched cable news network.

“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Mr. Carlson wrote to Ms. Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020.

Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

Mr. Carlson continued, “Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” he added, making clear that he did not.


The messages also show that such doubts extended to the highest levels of the Fox Corporation, with Rupert Murdoch, its chairman, calling Mr. Trump’s voter fraud claims “really crazy stuff.”

On one occasion, as Mr. Murdoch watched Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell on television, he told Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.”

Dominion’s brief depicts Ms. Scott, whom colleagues have described as sharply attuned to the sensibilities of the Fox audience, as being well aware that Mr. Trump’s claims were baseless. And when another Murdoch-owned property, The New York Post, published an editorial urging Mr. Trump to stop complaining that he had been cheated, Ms. Scott distributed it widely among her staff. Mr. Murdoch then thanked her for doing so, the brief says.

The filing, in state court in Delaware, contains the most vivid and detailed picture yet of what went on behind the scenes at Fox News and its corporate parent in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, when the conservative cable network’s coverage took an abrupt turn.

Fox News stunned the Trump campaign on election night by becoming the first news outlet to declare Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner of Arizona — effectively projecting that he would become the next president. Then, as Fox’s ratings fell sharply after the election and the president refused to concede, many of the network’s most popular hosts and shows began promoting outlandish claims of a far-reaching voter fraud conspiracy involving Dominion machines to deny Mr. Trump a second term.

more -

Tuesday, July 09, 2019

And So It Goes


If "Conservatives" would stop acting like a buncha whiny-butt pussies, I'd stop calling them a buncha whiny-butt pussies.

I've called them Rubes for a while now too - which they are, because they continue to demonstrate they are.

See how that works?

Now, I'm not saying I have some kind of perfect record when it comes to bravely confronting things in life. 

To this day, I can't listen to Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (The Exorcist) without having nightmares. And I'm a fucking atheist.

There was also the time I believed that my wife of 28 years (now ex-wife) wasn't taking horizontal mambo lessons from an old high school "acquaintance" on a regular basis.

So I can be a chicken - and a dumbass mired in denial too.

But for the most part, when I'm looking at all this political stuff, I can pick my way through the available data and synthesize a reasonable hypothesis that I can test, to see if it holds up.

There are things you just have to know are bullshit. And it's not something where you have to have a knack for it, or an innate ability to see the truth through an unfiltered mind's eye.

You just have to test it. Question it. Sort it out.

And really, it helps to be possessed of that tiny modicum of common sense that "conservatives" are always bitchin' about how nobody else has.

Anyway.

The Washington Examiner:

Russian intelligence agents spread a false report claiming assassins working for Hillary Clinton killed Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich just days after his murder, according to a new investigation.

The SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, spread a fake intelligence report about Rich on July 13, 2016, three days after he was killed walking home, a federal prosecutor told Yahoo News.

The Russians claimed Rich, a 27-year-old working as a data director for the DNC, was going to alert the FBI to corrupt dealings by Clinton when he was murdered by assassins. Those details then appeared on whatdoesitmean.com, an obscure website that promotes Russian propaganda.

In the next two years, media organizations owned by the Russian government emphasized stories falsely alleging Rich leaked Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange also made false statements about Rich’s death to obscure that the hacked emails came from Russia, special counsel Robert Mueller alleged in his redacted report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll factory that engaged in social media influence operations during the election, aggressively circulated the conspiracy theories, helping to keep the false claims alive.

The conspiracy was also spread by allies of President Trump.



The Examiner isn't what any sentient being would consider "lefty":



And "conservatives" are suckers. They're whiny-butt pussies and rubes and suckers.

Friday, August 17, 2018

Today's Tweet



DumFux News is one big lie.

 

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

The Truth About Post-Truth

MTV Politics


FACEBOOK’S FAKE-NEWS PROBLEM AND THE RISE OF THE POSTMODERN RIGHT
Is anyone surprised that Mark Zuckerberg doesn't feel responsible? One of the luxuries of power in Silicon Valley is the luxury to deny that your power exists. It wasn't you, it was the algorithm. Facebook may have swallowed traditional media (on purpose), massively destabilized journalism (by accident), and facilitated the spread of misinformation on a colossal scale in the run-up to an election that was won by Donald Trump (ha! whoops). But that wasn't Facebook's fault! It was the user base, or else it was the platform, or else it was the nature of sharing in our increasingly connected world. It was whatever impersonal phrase will absolve Zuckerberg's bland, drowsy appetite from blame for unsettling the things it consumes. In this way, the god-emperors of our smartphones form an instructive contrast with our president-elect: They are anti-charismatic. Unlike Trump, the agents of disruption would rather not be seen as disruptors. In the sharing economy, nothing gets distributed like guilt.
The argument that Facebook has no editorial responsibility for the content it shows its users is fatuous, because it rests on a definition of "editorial" that confuses an intention with a behavior. Editing isn't a motive. It is something you do, not something you mean. If I publish a list of five articles, the order in which I arrange them is an editorial choice, whether I think of it that way or not. Facebook's algorithm, which promotes some links over others and controls which links appear to which users, likewise reflects a series of editorial choices, and it is itself a bad choice, because it turns over the architecture of American information to a system that is infinitely scammable. I have my own issues with the New York Times, but when your all-powerful social network accidentally replaces newspapers with a cartel of Macedonian teens generating fake pro-Trump stories for money, then friend, you have made a mistake. It is time to consider pivoting toward a new vertical in the contrition space.
 

Thursday, August 04, 2016

Propaganda Works


Cool story, bro.  

But wait - that's not Jacksonville, that's Cleveland.  And oh gosh, that's the victory parade for the Cavaliers when they beat the Warriors for the NBA championship a coupla months ago.

Oops.

Dang - Breitbart lied to us?  Another illusion shattered.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Coining A New Term

To co-opt Mr Clemens - There are lies, damned lies, and TeaParty Rhetoric.



So, lemme see.  We can add Job Killing to Death Panels; Abortion Surtax; Healthcare Rationing; Government Takeover; blahblah blahblah blahblah.

The GOP is just straight-up lying.  And they can lie all they want because they know there's a constituency out here just waiting to lap up whatever falls outa their asses.  Which is why I've decided to start referring to the Tea Party in a way that more accurately reflects their actual function: Toilet Paper Republicans.

Seriously tho', what does it take to get some of these people deprogrammed?

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

A System We Live in



(hat tip = Democratic Underground)

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From the Press
9/6/2002

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
- Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Adviser
CNN Late Edition
9/8/2002

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
- George W. Bush, President
Speech to the UN General Assembly
9/12/2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
- George W. Bush, President
Radio Address
10/5/2002

"The Iraqi regime ... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."
- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"After 11 years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon."
- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas."
- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio, Speech
10/7/2002

"Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand."
- John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
Speech to the Hudson Institute
11/1/2002

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists ... The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction."
- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Denver, Address to the Air National Guard
12/1/2002

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
12/2/2002

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From the Press
12/4/2002

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
1/9/2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."
- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to the UN Security Council
2/5/2003

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling."
- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Address to the UN Security Council
2/5/2003

"In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world - and we will not allow it."
- George W. Bush, President
Speech to the American Enterprise Institute
2/26/2003

"So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not."
- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to the UN Security Council
3/7/2003

"Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that, based on intelligence, that has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
- Dick Cheney, Vice President
"Meet the Press"
3/16/2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
- George W. Bush, President
Address to the Nation
3/17/2003

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly ... all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
3/21/2003

"One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites."
- Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman
Press Briefing
3/22/2003

"I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."
- Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board Member
Washington Post, p. A27
3/23/2003

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
ABC Interview
3/30/2003

"We still need to find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders so we can prevent the flow of weapons of mass destruction materials and senior regime officials out of the country."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"You bet we're concerned about it. And one of the reasons it's important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction ... and terrorist groups - networks - is a critical link. And the thought that ... some of those materials could leave the country and in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn't happen."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"But make no mistake - as I said earlier - we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"Were not going to find anything until we find people who tell us where the things are. And we have that very high on our priority list, to find the people who know. And when we do, then well learn precisely where things were and what was done."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
"Meet the Press"
4/13/2003

"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."
- George W. Bush, President
NBC Interview
4/24/2003

"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."
- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/3/2003

"I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now."
- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to Reporters
5/4/2003

"We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Fox News Interview
5/4/2003

"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein - because he had a weapons program."
- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/6/2003

"U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction."
- Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Adviser
Reuters Interview
5/12/2003

"We said all along that we will never get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and searching specific sites, that you'd have to be able to get people who know about the programs to talk to you."
- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Interview with Australian Broadcasting
5/13/2003

"It's going to take time to find them, but we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction."
- George W. Bush, President
Speech at a Weapons Factory in Ohio
5/25/2003

"They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations
5/27/2003

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Vanity Fair Interview
5/28/2003

"The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that's borne out by the fact that, just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the bio trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That's proof-perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
5/29/2003

"We have teams of people that are out looking. They've investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Infinity Radio Interview
5/30/2003

"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."
- George W. Bush, President
Interview With TVP Poland
5/30/2003

"You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ... They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two ... And we'll find more weapons as time goes on."
- George W. Bush, President
Press Briefing
5/30/2003

"This wasn't material I was making up, it came from the intelligence community."
- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Press Briefing
6/2/2003

"We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. This is the man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than me he's got a big country in which to hide them. We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth."
- George W. Bush, President
Camp Sayliya, Qatar
6/5/2003

"I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, 'Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?' Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment."
- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Fox News Interview
6/8/2003

"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored."
- Condoleezza Rice, US National Security Adviser
"Meet the Press"
6/8/2003

"What the president has said is because it's been the long-standing view of numerous people, not only in this country, not only in this administration, but around the world, including at the United Nations, who came to those conclusions ... And the president is not going to engage in the rewriting of history that others may be trying to engage in."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From the Press

"Iraq had a weapons program ... Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program."
- George W. Bush, President
Comment to Reporters
6/9/2003

"The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory."
- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Associated Press Interview
6/12/2003

"My personal view is that their intelligence has been, I'm sure, imperfect, but good. In other words, I think the intelligence was correct in general, and that you always will find out precisely what it was once you get on the ground and have a chance to talk to people and explore it, and I think that will happen."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Briefing
6/18/2003

"I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons, programs, that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time ... It's now less than eight weeks since the end of major combat in Iraq and I believe that patience will prove to be a virtue."
- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Pentagon Media Briefing
6/24/2003

"I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."
- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
7/9/2003

Friday, June 08, 2012

Parade Of Stoopid

This is some high-quality stoopid right here:

 

 Not even Juan (The Twin Token) Williams can go along with Bolling's malarkey.

Friday, February 03, 2012

Shoulda Knowed It

DumFux News is fond of saying the US Corporate Tax Rate is the 2nd highest in the world (35%), getting the rubes to pretend that the debate can just stop there.

Well, the non-rubes among us know that the Tax Rate has no meaning if nobody ever pays at that rate.

So guess what - the 'effective rate' is actually down around 12%.  And, the amount of Corp Taxes collected as a percentage of GDP is the lowest it's been since 1972.

So, once again, the "Libruls" were right, and the "Conservatives" have been lying to us.

From the Rupert Street Journal - full piece is behind the pay wall.

hat tip = Democratic Underground