On Friday, as he rallied his bigoted, small-minded followers in a suburb of Minneapolis, John McCain made a most bizarre attempt to reverse the fear mongering and bigoted tone of his faltering campaign

The incident involved a brief exchange between a pathetic McCain supporter and her increasingly desperate candidate. What happened was this: during a rally at Lakeville South High School, McCain handed his microphone to a woman who expressed her concerns about Barack Obama "I don't trust Obama,” she said. “I have read about him. He's an Arab."

Just then, for just one unrealistic nanosecond, I naively hoped that John McCain would take the high road and reject such a bigoted attack from someone in his painfully ignorant audience.  Instead, my heart sank in disbelief as I heard the response to this ethnic slur from a man who would be our national leader.

“No, ma’am” offered John {our hero) McCain, “He’s a decent, family man, [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about."  

Implicit, of course, in that response was another message: Don’t worry, ma’am, Barack Obama is NOT an Arab.  Unlike Arabs, he’s a decent, family man.

Maybe it’s genetic, but Sarah Palin sure is good with a gun.  It seems that daddy loved bringing down those nasty Alaskan brown bears in a town where little Sarah first learned to alarm the local moose community.  But trust me, I’m not knocking moose stew; it might be a really good meal.

Palin grew up in Alaska, where people hunt and fish.  So be it.  This is not going to be a dissertation on animal rights or a moral critique on her spare time activities.  Moose and salmon and wild birds are fair game for hunters in her neck of the woods, and Sarah hunts and fishes with the best of them.  Good for her.

But in her new role as the GOP veep candidate Sarah Palin has crossed a line, even for a hunter.  This time she has set her sights on a new and unfamiliar target. This time she is not aiming at a herd or a bevy or a flock.  This time she is going after a large group of intelligent, thinking Americans known as women voters.  .

And this time, as she hunts in uncharted territory, Sarah Palin has made a strategic error.  For some distorted reason, Palin thinks she is hunting lemmings.

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. 

I hate to admit it, but I don’t think any of this really matters. After all, it’s a national holiday, so God will Bless America, the flag-draped coffins and maimed bodies of our soldiers will remain hidden, and patriotism will abound as the band plays on.

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 intent is to put to rest the notion that Tim Russert KNEW anything before or after there was any pretense of investigation by anyone. I also want to to illustrate how Matthews' commentary effectively thwarts the attempts by the 9/11 Truth community to expose the truth or even raise the vital questions about what happened on that day.

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,

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.