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Here they come again – the Sousa bands, the waving flags, the cheering crowds, and the fabulous fireworks. Ah, yes, it’s Yankee Doodle time again in America.  So let’s get ready to party.

It’s just that I really don’t understand what we’re celebrating.

I don’t really understand why millions of people in this country still pretend that they live in America the Beautiful. I don’t understand why they are not wailing in grief because Yankee Doodle is no longer “dandy.” I don’t understand why there is no widespread sadness about the tragic transformation of their national image.

In fact, in this eighth year of our Bush/PNAC captivity, far too few people in the United States are willing to acknowledge that Yankee Doodle Dandy has now become Yankee Doodle Deadly. The sad truth is that too few people are even remotely aware that the American flag, like Yankee Doodle, has lost every bit of its meaning.

For sure, on this Fourth of July, millions of US flags will be flown as if nothing untoward has happened to the nation they represent. So many Americans have no clue that their flag has lost its glory.  They do not realize that Yankee Doodle – along with any other symbol of the USA – now stands for immoral wars, a shattered Constitution, domestic spying, legalized torture, and corporate greed.

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Today, Chris Matthews continued his ongoing canonization of Tim Russert.  Early in this evening’s Hardball show, Matthews repeated a segment of his original tribute to Russert’s career.  By doing so, he either shamelessly established Russert as a leading 9/11 gate keeper or a blithering idiot.  I strongly suspect the former.

Of all the endless possibilities, Matthews chose to memorialize Russert for some uncanny and privileged insight into the truth about what happened on September 11th.  He wanted us all to know that

“[Tim Russert] knew on that horrid morning of September 11th that the hijackers had grabbed the transcontinental flights because they’d have enough fuel to melt the girders of the World Trade towers.”

Wow, just like that, on the morning of 911, Tim Russert KNEW the motivations of a whole group of incinerated hijackers.  That’s really fantastic.  He also KNEW the planes had enough fuel to melt the girders of the World Trade towers.  He just KNEW the temperature of burning jet fuel, and he KNEW the melting temperature of steel.  Tim Russert was not only a mind reader of the dead, but an undeclared expert in aviation practices and thermal physics.  I’m impressed.

But I’m also outraged.  Real or imagined hijackers aside, there are a myriad of questions that still remain answered about 9/11. In this article, I will address ONLY TWO.  My purpose is not to delve into the mountains of evidence that have utterly decimated the nonsense in the official story of the attacks and the fairy tale known as the 9/11 Commission Report. That can be done by any one with the ability to use a search engine on the Internet.

My purpose is to put to rest the notion that Tim Russert KNEW anything before there was a single moment of investigation by anyone.  My purpose is also to illustrate how such suggestions from people who know better continue to thwart any attempts by the 9/11 Truth community to counter the propaganda that the American public has been told a single truth about what happened on that day.

(Continued at http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl)

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It’s not on the network news programs, because, in fact – it’s kind of secret.  Even the
print media, where they’ve covered a bit of this story, don’t know very much about it.  Whatever it is, U.S. officials refuse comment on the details.  Even members of Congress are out of the loop, but it really does sound super!

It’s got one of those feel good Bushco names, - you know – like the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, Clear Skies, and – of course, Operation Iraqi Freedom.  All these clever captions successfully sold Americans some really toxic legislation, and anesthetized their free fall into dictatorship and economic collapse.

So what’s to worry about a US-Iraq Security Pact with our good buddies in Iraq?

Heck, Americans want security and surely Iraqis want security, - and don’t we all just want to get along? It does sound eerily comforting after so many years of killing and maiming, so maybe our compassionate leader and his cohorts are really working to provide us with peace and prosperity after all.  So why all the behind-closed-doors stuff?  And why, after months of bargaining has it come to a no-deal dead end?

Lets’ take a look at what we do know… with a one important caveat.  George W. Bush and his neocon handlers will make sure that the American public believes that Iran is behind this failure, while Bomb, Bomb Iran is played as background music to their claim. Don’t buy it.  Iran is surely frightened that this pact might succeed, and for very good reasons is pressuring Prime Minister Nouri Al- Maliki to develop a backbone and reject it.

But Iran is NOT behind what’s going on,

Bear in mind that ‘negotiations’ between the US and Iraq that began last November.  The story remained pretty much under the radar until earlier this month when a British paper leaked details of the ‘secret’ agreement between the US and Iraq.  Just as suddenly, Iraqi legislators began to wail loudly about being railroaded into an agreement they did not want and could not accept.  Here’s a recap of what went on:

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I don’t know who is writing George Bush’s speeches nowadays, but it has to be someone with really serious mental problems. It’s embarrassing enough when this clueless president attempts to speak spontaneously. Left to his own devices, he cannot string together a handful of simple words with any coherent continuity; just as he cannot offer rational responses to questions he apparently is unable to process. But when George Bush has a prepared speech to deliver to an apprehensive audience of 1,500 global policymakers and business leaders in the Middle East, you’d think he would say something intelligent. Think again.

It’s seems almost ridiculous when you do think about it, - but today, the President of these United States sought to lecture men whose cultures he does not understand, and whose history he does not know, and whose societies he has never studied, and whose people view him with distrust and disrespect, on how they should conduct their lives.

At an international conference of Arab notables, this arrogant, unpopular, ineffective, and insensitive man – George W. Bush - dared to pass himself off as a staunch defender of peace and freedom in the world, as well as the reigning champion of political freedom and women’s rights. According to the AP, he assumed a ‘decidedly tougher tone,’ when making the following claims:

“America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organizations that are shut down and dissidents whose voices are stifled…I call on all nations in this region to release their prisoners of conscience, open up their political debate and trust their people to chart their future,”

Are you laughing yet? I know I am. But it’s laughter of disbelief and incredulity that seems to be the only response I can muster to this ongoing madness. George W. Bush, the man who has done more to violate political freedom, oppose women’s rights, suppress freedom of information and the press, and and who prides himself on being a ‘war president,’ is lecturing others to reform the ills of their governments.

It is beyond insanity. Having George Bush lecture anyone about peace and freedom is much like Charles Manson giving a talk on positive group dynamics.

After all, this is a man who lied the American people into an endless war. This is a man who spied on his own citizens in violation of their Constitutional rights. This is a man who has led the most secretive government in the history of this country, and has imprisoned people without charges and without right to counsel. This is a man who has condoned and approved of torture and rendition flights, and this is a man who is totally committed to denying women the right to privacy or equal pay and to giving gays and lesbians the same civil rights enjoyed by other Americans.

This is a man who refused to allow an investigation into the tragic events of 9/11 for a full year after they occurred, and who still stands in the way of any discussion or exposure of the fallacies of the official account of that day. This is a man who sent military officers with ties to war profiteers to shill for his wars on the complicit “news” networks. And this is a man who will not allow the American public to see the flag-draped coffins of the troops he sent into a senseless meat grinder called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

This is a man who has supported the most repressive Middle Eastern leaders when it has been profitable for him to do so, and who has slaughtered countless innocents in the region when that has been equally profitable for him and his handlers. This is the man whom Condoleezza Rice has the temerity to describe as “pro-democracy and pro-peace.” And yet, this is the man who dares to lecture anyone on earth on the virtues of peace and freedom.

At TvNewsLIES, we have spent most years of the Bush presidency reporting the crimes that the thugs of this administration have perpetrated on this country and the world, and for which this President and his cohorts will never be held responsible. Like others in the alternative world of real news, we have written over and over about the deterioration of our freedom and the horrors of the wars that the Bush cartel has waged in our name. Frankly, right now, I’m tired of doing the same thing over and over.

Perhaps I’ll just have a good laugh. It’s really quite ludicrous after all.

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Is it a still a conspiracy theory when the entire plot is exposed on the front page of the Sunday NY Times?  Today’s story blows the lid off the myth that television is an any way fair and balanced, in any way trustworthy, and in any way real news.

Most Americans will never see the NY Times story because the TV news networks will not expose their own lies on their own news programs. Just imagine CNN, FOX News or NBC, ABC or CBS featuring this headline story:

Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

Courting Officers Tied to Military Contractors

Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

The report exposes the complicity of the TV news networks in featuring military ‘analysts’ selected by the Pentagon to promote Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq

The TV networks will never draw public attention to their complicity in supporting the Bush/PNAC plans for war, the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the continued occupation of a sovereign nation that never posed a threat to the people of the United Sates. No way.  They cannot acknowledge their role in intentionally duping the public into believing the lies prepared and disseminated directly from the Pentagon and the White House.
Think about it: how do you get a news story to the public about the crimes of those who report the stories in the first place?  It ain’t gonna happen.

Continued here. 

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I’ll admit it, I did not remember either.  Even though we reported the story last year, so much has happened in Iraq that somehow I, too, had forgotten. The story, like so many others, had been swept under the proverbial rug by the corporate media, and within a day or so the world forgot about the Filipino workers in Iraq.

But a few days ago, I received a personal email from an officer serving in Iraq and housed in the Green Zone, and the story came back to me, full blast.  Just a few words in the message reminded me of the forgotten horror that must be added to the countless crimes this administration is committing in Iraq.

This time around, I don’t want the story to become lost in the endless melee of death and destruction that defines this useless war.  I just want to put it out into the public consciousness once again, so we don’t simply forget what is going on.  This time around, it has to get some real attention.

The original story involved the First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Company, the firm that was awarded a nearly $600 million contract to construct the ridiculously ostentatious US Embassy compound in the Green Zone. It also involved the recruitment of thousand of foreign laborers to work on this behemoth that was to be the largest diplomatic mission in the world.

It also focused on Filipinos who were lured by offers of good jobs in Kuwait, and then transported to Iraq against their will to work in Iraq.  I will not detail the entire story here because it is available at sites such as the Migrants News Monitor.  I will, however, reprint the statements of two former American civilian contractors of a Kuwaiti company who testified before the House Committee on oversight and government reform on allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in the construction project.

According to the testimony of John Owen, “Conditions there were deplorable, beyond what even a working man should tolerate.  Foreign workers were packed in trailers tight. There was insufficient equipment and basic needs – stuff like shoes and gloves. If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes, he was told, ‘No, do with what you have’ by First Kuwaiti managers. The contract for these workers said they had to work 12 hours a day 7 days a week, with some time off on Friday for prayers.”

At the same hearing, Rory J. Malberry testified that he was asked to escort 51 Filipino nationals to the Kuwaiti airport and make sure they got on the same flight that he was taking to Baghdad. “Many of these Filipinos did not speak any English,” he told US congressmen. “When we got to the Kuwait airport, I noticed that all of our tickets said we were going to Dubai. I asked why? The Kuwaiti manager told me that because Filipino passports do not allow Filipinos to fly to Iraq, they must be marked as going to Dubai.”

And boy, did that ever make the front pages and the network news!  Sure, it did

Of course, the rest is history because the workers are still there.and predictably, nothing came of the testimony, and nothing was ever done to investigate the fate of the Filipinos or any other foreign workers who serve at the behest of wealthy contractors in Iraq.  And, just as predictably, the story was forgotten and the abuse and deception disappeared into the fog of war.

Until just a few days ago…

Continued at TvNewsLIES.org/tvnl 

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 ‘Unpopular’ -  un’pop•u•lar -  Lacking general approval or acceptance.

Aw, gee..  The American people really don’t approve of the war. They’ve totally forgotten about the death and destruction in Afghanistan, but they just can’t find it in their hearts to give the war in Iraq a thumbs up.  What a shame.

It’s so comforting to know that we’re in the midst of what the pundits now call an ‘unpopular war.’  I suppose it’s something like an unpopular brand of toothpaste, - not really terrible, but somewhat unappealing and not quite what the public wants.  “It’s not the war, really,” we hear. “It’s the way it was fought.”  It’s not the toothpaste either, I imagine, but something about the after taste.

Is it conceivable that that this illegal, immoral war, built on a mountain of lies and deceptions is merely unpopular?  Is it possible that the death, the bloodshed, and the hundreds of billions of wasted dollars simply lack the general approval of most Americans?

One has to wonder what would happen in a ‘popular war.’

Polls show that most Americans want this long, costly war to be over.  But they also want to win.  They don’t really know what they would win, and from whom they would win anything.  They don’t really know the bad guys from the good ones, but they seem tired of something.  They want the troops home, but they fear being attacked in the night by someone out to get them.

And yet, most Americans are not angry or outraged or horrified by what has happened to this country, to Iraq, to our soldiers, and to the Iraqi people. They have set aside the images of Abu Ghraib, and the rendition of detainees for torture in other countries.  They are not indignant at the lies they were told, nor are they screaming for impeachment of those who told the lies.  They want bygones to be bygones.

They just find the war ‘unpopular’ and inconvenient and unacceptable in some sense….

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The war against Iraq began at 5:30 AM Baghdad time (9:30 PM EST, March 19), when the U.S. launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Five years, George. Five ugly, deadly, bloody years. This is quite an anniversary. If you wait a day or two, you’ll be able to celebrate the 4,000th US military death as well.
Break out the champagne.

It’s been a fairly quiet five years, George. No photos of the dead or dying. No flag-draped coffins, no talk of the legless, blinded or horribly burned. Not a murmur about hundreds of thousands of dead and terribly injured Iraqis. No concern about the millions who had to flee the country of their fathers… no fanfare about daisy cutters or depleted uranium. Celebrate….we’re making progress.

Great news management, George, -you’d hardly know such carnage was involved. . Good for you.

You’ve waged such a clean, carefree war, George, if just a tad costly. That $12 billion a month you’re spending on this foray really is hardly worth a mention, considering what you’ve done to the dollar. But, a cash cow is a cash cow. Let’s drink to that.

And let’s hear it for the never-ending, euphoric ‘progress,’ in your lovely war, George. Let’s not quibble about the lack of water and electricity for the Iraqis, or the devastating shortages of doctors and medical supplies. And, luckily, a blown up bus or marketplace here or there is hardly newsworthy. Not a word in the establishment media about the daily killings or kidnappings you’ve set in motion all these years.

Hey, the networks deserve a hand here. Almost three quarters of Americans believe that you’ve caused the deaths of only three thousand American troops. Hard to believe, but they’ve inadvertently written off the lives of a thousand young soldiers and marines. Hell, ignorance is bliss. Party on.

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by Reggie, Contributing Editor, TvNewsLIES.org

It just doesn’t stop. With painful consistency, there always is a new effrontery, a new attack on the Constitution, and a new slap in our collective faces. And every day, the American public responds largely in silent quiescence, seemingly unperturbed and indifferent to the insults and abuses being hurled at them from the man who reigns supreme in the White House.

And with this apathy, the people of the United States offer aid and comfort to their greatest enemies from within, and unwittingly give tacit approval to a madman and his boss.

I refuse to give total credit to Bush himself for his actions. The man does not have the intelligence, insight or experience to personally inflict all the damage done by his administration. However, for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to George Bush as the major culprit involved in the crimes against the nation and the world.. In fact, responsibility lies with the entire cadre of neocons and delusional managers who placed a sociopath in the White House and allowed him to play a role he was ill equipped to handle.

Therefore, just consider what George Bush managed to slip past a sleeping public in just the past few days: First, he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as water boarding “to break suspected terrorists,” Never mind the Geneva Conventions, never mind US military law, never mind the danger to our own military personnel at the hands of a future enemy. Never mind, because the wimpish Congress will go along without a murmur.

And never mind because the American public, if they know about it at all, will very soon forget.

Then consider that just today the arrogant, self-aggrandizing President of the United States issued another record-breaking signing statement, adding to the more than 750 of his administration. This time Bush declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed.

Hey, people…. That’s about opening YOUR mail….contrary to existing law. But never mind, because the American public, if they know about it at all, will very soon forget.

After all, they’ve forgotten so many other crimes for which this administration is not accountable. Here, at TvNewsLIES.org, we’ve been writing about these crimes for years, as have so many other concerned investigative news sites. In doing so, we have enlarged the proverbial choir and increased the murmur of discontent. But in the long run we have failed.

We have completely failed to stir America to the point of outrage that would have resulted in massive protests in major countries around the world. And that’s because, despite all they learn about the criminal behavior of their government, Americans forget.

And by forgetting, they aid and abet the Bush administration as it destroys the fabric of American life and liberty.

Take a moment to explore a fractional realm of American amnesia as it relates to the past seven year.

Think about some of the crimes that far too few Americans remember:

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Wanna lift nearly five decades of embargo? Wanna make the US your best friend? Wanna take photos of you and Georgie holding hands and smiling like lovers? Get those oil reserves on record, Raul. Time’s a-wasting.

Fidel’s a done deal. He’s old and sick and done for. As Brother Raul, you’re in charge and the barbs are out. Every US presidential candidate will take the Bush lead and aim at your brutal rule, your political prisoners, your embrace of communism, and your refusal to follow our extraordinary example of democracy and freedom.. And, for the record, Florida has a sizable number of electoral votes in play, Raul. Deal with it.

Better still, repent and be loved.

Take a lesson from the Saudis. They’re our best friends, Raul. Never mind that they sentenced a victim of a gang rape to 90 lashes for daring to speak to the press. Never mind that they convicted a woman of witchcraft after a confession obtained by torture. Never mind that they have no religious freedom at all, and never mind that just today the Saudi secret police arrested 37 men for …you guessed it….flirting!!!!

In case you’re wondering, the men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, but remember, Raul, they’ve got the oil. And where there’s oil we can control, human rights are irrelevant. That’s the American way.
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