American voters overwhelmingly believe the economy stinks, and there’s little belief that the stimulus plan was effective. In addition, most voters favor a balanced budget amendment — except if it means program cuts or new taxes.
These are just some of the findings from a Fox News poll released Thursday.
There’s so much derp in this poll it’s kinda sad, but this one is…wow. It’s been a Republican mantra and oft-repeated assertion that the “stimulus failed” or it was a “failed stimulus”. Those two words are *ALWAYS* together when the efforts taken to stabilize the economy are summarized to a linguistic shorthand. The problem with the Republican assertion is that the vast majority of independent economists not paid by Republicans, but who understands what the stimulus did, don’t actually agree with them.
So they do this poll. And make that assertion.. “there’s little belief that the stimulus plan was effective.”
Here’s the number they use to support it…”Meanwhile, less than a third think the stimulus plan has helped the economy (29 percent).”
Do you think the federal government’s 2009 economic stimulus plan has helped the economy, hurt the economy, or not made much of a difference either way?
Helped: 29%
Hurt: 23%
No difference: 46%
(Don’t know): 2%
Yes, that’s right, more people think it helped than hurt. Not only that, but as time goes on, and more people actually go beyond the talking points to see what happened, there is a marked shift from that “no difference” column to the “helped” one. It should also be noted that those saying “no difference”, are actually in the Stimulus working column, as the point was to keep us out of a depression (getting back into solid growth would have taken a larger package, probably double the size of the $878B).
So anyway, Fox even spin their own polls in ways that make little sense in the overall context . And it’s done to, as much as possible, reinforce Republican talking points.You can also see the stats that many Republicans will be pushing over the next few days, the 72% support for a “Balanced Budget Amendment” The fact that this support drops to the low 30’s when even the barest sense of what theoretical steps it would take to balance it, is one of those quibbling details that doesn’t need to be mentioned, and likely will not be.NOTE: If anyone has Dana Blanton of Fox News’s email address please send it to me. I would like to ask her the reasoning behind her statements, but Fox doesn’t have easy contact info.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee just passed the “Choose Life” license plates bill by a 5-1 vote.
Dallas GOP Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, said he’d support an amendment that would create a license plate advocated by pro-choicers – who want the state to sell plates advocated both sides of the issue – if they can get the votes for it. But since the votes aren’t there for it, the bill will hit the Senate floor as is.
AUSTIN – A House panel is debating legislation that would require most voters to present a photo ID before casting a ballot.
The bill, being heard Tuesday in a special House committee, has already cleared the Senate and is on the fast track for approval in the Legislature. Democrats and civil rights groups say the legislation would erect new voting hurdles for minorities and the poor. Republicans say it’s needed to combat voter fraud.
You know how it is, separate rules, but “equal”. Should work just fine, like it did last time.
What other fine ideas are they throwing around in Austin? Let’s take a look..
As proposed, House Bill 2012 would create tough state punishments for those who “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” hire an unauthorized immigrant. Violators could face up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000.
But it is an exception included in the bill that is drawing attention. Those who hire unauthorized immigrants would be in violation of the law — unless they are hiring a maid, a lawn caretaker or another houseworker.
That’s to make sure future gubernatorial candidates don’t have to pass jail on their way to the statehouse. See…it’s just fine to hire illegals, but only as servants. Can we brand them with little Mexcian-stars too? That will make them easier to round up when the next inevitable step is taken after de-humanization.
Other silliness?
Leo Berman [R] himself has filed a number of immigrant-related bills this legislative session. One would make English the official language of Texas, a move that would save millions in printing costs, he said. The law wouldn’t affect schools or ballots, he added.
Another bill would place an 8% surcharge on all money wired from Texas to Latin America. About $480 million could be collected from money sent to Mexico alone, the representative said. The proceeds would be earmarked for state hospitals.
This is pretty slick…get a bunch of cheap, underclass workers with no chance of assimilation, make it illegal to talk to them in their own language, and then rip them off when they try to wire the money home. Add in the extra 6.2% (well, 4.2% this year) that everyone with a fake social security number pays (they pay into the system, but never pull out), and you see why this quote came next…
Amid all of these tough proposals, why the large exception to Riddle’s bill on hiring unauthorized workers?
Riddle did not return repeated calls for comment. Her office said she would not comment on the bill because it could still be modified.
In a interview with the Texas Tribune, Riddle’s chief of staff, Jon English, explained that the exception was to avoid “stifling the economic engine” in Texas.
This, BTW, is an economic engine driven by cheap labor. The plan, as it stands, seems to be to try and set up a permanent underclass down around these parts. I’d guess it’s going to be a rather dismal failure, but then again, when has any government run by Republicans not been? (serious question…I’d love to see the record for *other* governments run by a single party of Republicans…like Texas is now…it led the U.S. into our worst economy in a century)
And as a final cherry in the you’ve-got-to-be-frickin-kidding-me news from Texas. Here’s out geographically challenged longest-serving governor ever…
During a sit down with reporters on Monday, the Texas governor incorrectly identified Juarez — located across the Rio Grande, and border, from El Paso — as “the most dangerous city in America.”
John McCain is dropping honor by the wayside in this campaign. The latest chapter involves a bunch of robots. Lying, evil robots.
I think we need to take a closer lok at that army of robots he has hired to lie for him. They are bothering people and calling Obama a Terrorist.
[yes, that’s the real audio. Someone did a nice job of putting it to culture]
The automated calls in Maine, Nevada and other states — they are commonly known as “robo calls” — say Obama “has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans.”
The charge is misleading: The bombings, which took place more than 35 years ago, didn’t result in fatalities and the group didn’t claim responsibility for the attack on the judge’s home.
So McCain has hired a bunch of robots to lie for him. His campaign is totally on-board with these tactics, obviously.
The McCain campaign says the calls are warranted because Obama’s connection to Ayers — the two met many years after Ayers’ anti-Vietnam War activities had ended — raises questions about the Democrat’s judgment and record.
“This is an association that is highly questionable and not out of bounds,” McCain spokesman Rick Gorka said.
The tactics, using robots to spread lies, has been widely condemned by rational thinking people.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Two senators in opposing political parties asked Republican presidential candidate John McCain to stop the automated phone calls that link Democratic candidate Barack Obama to a 1960s radical.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, made separate appeals to McCain on Friday. Collins faces a tough race for re-election and serves as a co-chairwoman of his Maine campaign.
“These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics,” Collins spokesman Kevin Kelley said. “Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately.”
Not to be outdone personally, McCain is now openly accusing Obama of being the ultimate U.S. boogey-man buzzword…a “socialist”.
CONCORD, N.C. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Saturday accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of favoring a socialistic economic approach by supporting tax cuts and tax credits McCain says would merely shuffle wealth rather than creating it.
“At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives,” McCain said in a radio address. “They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Sen. Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it’s just another government giveaway.”
McCain, though, has a health care plan girded with a similar philosophy. He proposes providing individuals with a $5,000 tax credit to buy health insurance. He would pay for his plan, in part, by considering as taxable income the money their employer spends on their health coverage.
Remember, it’s not “socialism” when Mccain does it. It’s not “socialism” when he advocates the government directly buying mortgages. It’s not “socialsim” when he holds up a workin’-class everyman as, well, everyone. It can’t be, because, DUH!!!, McCain isn’t a socialist and Obama is.
McCain then continued with his UNABASHEDLY SOCIALIST RHETORIC.
[McCain] also was sharply critical of the Bush administration, saying it should be more aggressive in buying up the home mortgages of those trapped by high interest rates and falling housing values.
“The administration is not doing it. The secretary of the Treasury is not doing it,” McCain told the crowd. “We need to buy up these mortgages, give you a mortgage that you can afford, so you can pay your mortgage and realize the American Dream of owning your home.”
I don’t think McCain quite understands hows this works. Just because the Government buys your mortgage, it doesn’t mean that you, yourself, own it. The Government owns it. You still have to pay for it.
McCain seems to be saying that the Government can solve everyone’s problems by buying everyone’s mortgage and then giving them back to the People. That’s Socialist Rhetoric 101 people.
Now if that bit of hypocrisy isn’t enough for you, check this out.
Speaking to a boisterous crowd at Florida International University, McCain expressed dismay that the fame he brought on Joe Wurzelbacher has now turned the Ohio man into the focus of endless publicity, not all of it favorable.
For this, McCain blames his opponent, Barack Obama.
“The response from Senator Obama and his campaign yesterday was to attack Joe,” McCain said. “People are digging through his personal life and he has TV crews camped out in front of his house. He didn’t ask for Senator Obama to come to his house. He wasn’t recruited or prompted by our campaign. He just asked a question. And Americans ought to be able to ask Senator Obama tough questions without being smeared and targeted with political attacks.”
This is the most complete and utter crap I’ve heard this election season, and that’s saying A LOT. The guy tries to ambush Obama with a hypothetical question, conservatives go nuts over a soundbyte[*], “Joe” starts doing appearances on Fox and Rush, McCain himself brings up the guy 20 times during the debate….AND…..it’s Obama’s fault.
[*] BTW, in my long “Joe the Plumber” expose, I link to the entire, roughly 6-minute exchange between Sam and Obama. Obama ends with this bit…
Obama said his tax plan, which he said focuses on bigger breaks for people making lower incomes, would be good for the economy. “If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re going to be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you,” he said. “Right now, everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody. And I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Sounds like a fairly benign comment, right? Just pointing out that a rising tide lifts all ships, right?
No. You see, you have to read this (and you can’t watch the whole thing, that’s too easy). You need to read this through NutJob Republican eyes [i.e. like Rush, Hannity, and Fox]. When you do that, the exact same paragaph reads as…
SPREAD THE WEALTH AROUND!!!!1!! I WANT TO TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY AND SUPPRESS YOUR SPEECH AND GIVE IT TO THE OTHER BLACK PEOPLE!!!! I LOVE STALIN!!!!
And if you are “Joe the Plumber” you hear the above and you see a black guy in front of you, dancin’ like Sammy.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. In a new TV ad that repeats widely debunked claims about the Democratic tax plan, the Republican campaign calls Obama’s tax increases “painful.”
Under the economic plan proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less – the vast majority of American taxpayers – would receive a tax cut.
Although Republican John McCain claims that Obama would raise taxes, the independent Tax Policy Center and other groups conclude that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama’s proposals.
—
Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: “It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”
Biden’s gaffe, if you want to call it that (and they will), will probably get a lot more airplay that McCain’s dissassembling.
I found a really good graph comparing the two tax policy proposals from the candidates.
You can see it here.
McCain vs Obama (re: Taxes)
And Biden is right, it is time for the rich to start paying their fair share. They haven’t been since Bush’s massive upper class tax cuts. Now some people think that a higher ratio for the rich is some kind of class warfare, but what they often forget is the VAST majority of wealth in this country in concentrated in a few small portion of the populace. There are larger differences in income and wealth now in the U.S. than ever before.
And they got a whole bunch worse with Bush’s tax policy, which included a massive tax cut and starting a war, both of which McCain endorses. BTW, Bush was the first President to cut taxes during a war. Taxes were increased to pay for every U.S. war in history (except for the one with Mexico…which was paid for by Texas).
Some people will dismiss the Obama’s proposal “Class Warfare”. What I see it as is something made to avoid actual class warfare. You know, the killing and robbing kind.
But enough on that, let’s talk about McCain’s lies. McCain thinks that Obama is going to raise taxes on “Middle Class Americans” because McCain thinks that “Middle Class Americans” make around two or three million dollars a year.
Now, McCain might have been joking about that, but he wasn’t joking when he said that the Americans wouldn’t pick lettuce for $50/hour.
And now he wants to cut taxes, mostly for the richest 1%.
That’s just not responsible government. You can’t cut out earmarks and balance the budget. We had a $406,000,000,000 shortfall this last year, and the total for earmarks is around $16-18,000,000,000. That’s not going to even get us close…
For instance, estimates from watchdog groups of total earmark spending in fiscal 2008 range from $16-18 billion. Current estimated outlays for the federal government in fiscal 2008 are $2.9 trillion (PDF). That’s less than one percent.
To put it another way, the current projected deficit is roughly $400 billion. Even if John McCain got rid of every earmark (an impossible task), it would only make a small contribution to deficit reduction. (See Factcheck.org’s takedown of McCain’s exaggerated claims of how much it can save by reducing earmarks.)
So you could cut out every single infrastructure improvement project in the country (what “earmarks” often are) and that wouldn’t bring us anywhere near to balancing the budget. You can’t stop going to the movies when your salary is less than your rent and hope that somehow those “savings” balance the books.
What we need now are responsible politicians that don’t feed people the bullshit line that you can cut taxes to increase tax revenue in each and every economic situation.
This isn’t the 70’s, with a top marginal rate in the 70’s (percent).
This is the 00’s, with a top marginal rate in the teens (maturity-wise).
It’s a new situation and it needs a better solution than the one Bush offered (the one McCain was against before he was for it…both of which were *way* before he started lying about the whole thing).
If we look to history, the answer is easy. It we “make our own history” in the Neocon way, then we can happily make the same mistakes that have been made since time immemorial.
I don’t know about you, but I’m of the opinion that making blatanly scurrilous accusations and then installing viruses on people’s computers is a good sign of new low-point in American politics.
You shouldn’t have to steal passwords to get votes.
Yea, I know primary debates are great fodder for talking points…but this one is just about hilarious…especially after McCain’s First Choice got a big fail after cramming for her foreign policy exam. Hint: Cram for 10 more years and you’ll probably be ready for the test.
This video is actually a pretty good attack ad on McCain as well. But that’s probably because I think he was only batting 33% from this chart.
Umm..yea…that’s me…and what I was thinking about today. If you want to know what I was thinking or where I was 7 years ago today, I remember exactly, and can share.
Just like the rest of you.
Certain events in history have that effect.
—
Also, and this is only something that makes sense if you watch the video and wonder why I didn’t return to the same theme I started with…
There’s a reason the country isn’t together now as it was after 9/11/08. There’s a reason we don’t feel the unity we did then. A HUGE FUCKING part of that reason is the war we were lied into. If you don’t think we were lied into that war, please say so, and I’ll convince you otherwise. Hindsight is 20/20.
The other main reason for our disunity is that…well…a lot of things have gone wrong since Bush led us into the desert. A whole lot. And we all know it. What we don’t agree on is what to do about it. We don’t agree on that at all.
This is a problem. A real problem. We all agree on one thing (shit is fucked up) but we don’t agree on the other (who’s best to fix it). For whomever is selected to try and fix the problems that we have brought upon ourselves, at least half the country is going to throw up their arms in disapproval and immediately discount the solutions offered.
I’m going to go ahead and go out on a limb here in my virtual abode and offer all my rhetorical, roytorical, logical, factual, emotional, historical, histronical, and whatever-adjective-you-chose reasons why Obama is the better choice in this particular situation.
I’ve been doing so for a little while now, half-assedly. I just want to let you folks know what you are in store for. Until those polls start moving back in the right correct direction, my full argumentative arsenal is officially on patrol.
At a rally today, Sen. McCain again asserted that Sen. Obama has requested nearly a billion in earmarks. In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year. In comparison, Gov. Palin has requested $750 million in her two years as governor — which the AP says is the largest per-capita request in the nation.
—
[vs]
—
“The only people ‘lying’ about spending are the Obama campaign. The only explanation for their hysterical attacks is that they’re afraid that when John McCain and Sarah Palin are in the White House, Barack Obama’s nearly $1 billion in earmark spending will stop dead in its tracks,” Mr. Rogers said.
These are two different endings to the same article. The first one was published in the Wall Street Journal, a press institution with near impeccable news reporting credentials. The second one was published by the Wall Street Journal, the print arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. You might have heard of News Corp. They manufacture news damn near continuously on the Fox News Channel.
Most of News Corp’s manufactured news comes from designs created by the Republican Party in the United States. Despite Murdoch’s Aussie roots, his income and citizenship are now American (which he did to buy TV stations).
This relationship is evident in their replacing a factual, historical analysis of the topic at hand with a talking point from a McCain spokesman….which includes an accusation of lying…
I watch this last night and was blown away by the…sliminess…of it. The lack of knowledge of history. The selective memory and the out-and-out insanity of this. Not to mention, as you’ll see, the utter lack of judgement with showing hundreds of people getting killed instantly.
This is disgusting. This is the RNC.
Now…something VERY important to note here…listen as the video begins…
The first attack occurred in Iran, 444 days American held hostage. Again and again.
“They” grew…
—
And kill us “they” did. The date was September 11th, 9/11.
I’m sorry, but the selective memory, and total lack of historical perspective or accuracy is amazing. Gone is any mention of Reagan pulling out of Lebanon during the Israeli occupation. Gone is any mention of funding “Them” against their fight with the Evil Empire for the entirety of Reagan’s terms. Gone is any mention of Iraq and Iran fighting a horrid war in the 80’s, both with our help. Gone is any mention of Bush, or invading Iraq, or Afghainstan or Weapons of Mass Destruction. Gone is any sense of history or context.
Let’s recall, if we can, what this same group of people said in 2004.
Note the familiar face in the cavalcade of fear.
So is this the “Change” they are talking about? Instead of going after terrorists we are going after Islam? Instead of going after Iraq we are going after Iran (since they, it seems, started it)? Instead of focusing on our problems, we are focusing on how “they” want to kill us?
Have we always been at war with Eastasia? Or is it Middleeastasia?
Sorry, but this video illustrates exactly how much change, peace, and rational argument you can expect from the RNC and the McCain/Palin ticket.
WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.
The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.
“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”
The shift began in 2002, when advisers to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft restructured the honors program in response to what some officials saw as a liberal tilt in recruiting young lawyers from elite law schools like Harvard and Yale.
adsfasdf
In th elong run, I think this might be one of the wrost thing that the Bush administration has done. I mean, when you think about going from Ashcroft, who was a horrid idealogue who set up these practices, to Gonzales, who ended up resigning from office because he got busted implementing these practices…what does that say about Bush’s concept of “justice”?
It’s more of a “political justice” kind of thing, and it becomes evident that everything these folks see if filtered through the lens of political leaning. And I mean filtered at a base level. Coulter and Rush are not, as it turns out, outliers. For a while there, they were pretty mainstream. No wonder we have gone so far off course.
More on this one later. This is actually an older story, but I’m trying to keep up with everything on my desktop and this was sitting for a while.
This was going to start off as a post about Iran’s recent test firing of some missiles.
It starts with the CNN story of the firing, was going to mention the US response to the 40-year anniversary of the ABM treaty (from a couple weeks ago) and was going to finish with a mention that Iran had photoshopped one of their released “proof” photos to add a missile.
My main point was going to be that it was simple dick-waving. I was going to mention during the ABM article dissection that Israel (which is/was mentioned in the original CNN article) didn’t sign it and has nukes and isn’t afraid to use them in defense. So, all in all, it was a stalemate and dick-waving. Not much to see here.
Then I reloaded the CNN article.
A subtext of a lot of my media coverage over the last, oh, 10 years or so, has been their penchant of blood and guts. They have a desire to forment war, at least a little bit. I’m not alleging anything more nefarious here than news sells eyeballs. So helping the news along isn’t beyond the pale, generally. There is an incentive.
It’s sometimes hard to find. Sometimes easy. This article is now going to include all of that stuff before, but since there are now two (2) different CNN articles, both with quite different tones, I’ll point that out as well.
See if you can spot the difference. These are screenshots. I’ll try and archive the originals as well. Right now this proof only exists in the memory of my computer and some others out there that have been sitting on this story for a couple weeks.
Title: Iran test fires missiles in riposte to U.S., Israel
Bullet Points:
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards test fire nine long and medium range missiles
Officials say war games are in response to U.S. and Israeli threats
Drill conducted in the Persian Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormouz
Paragraph 2 and 3:The Islamic Republic News Agency and Press TV reported that the naval forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Wednesday test-fired a Shahab-3 missile during war games in the Persian Gulf.
The exercises come a month after Israel conducted a military drill in the eastern Mediterranean involving dozens of warplanes, and the latest Iranian activities prompted concern from Israel and condemnation from the United States.
So in this version we have a pretty simple action/reaction narrative going (bolded). We do something, they do something, etc. etc.
Now on to the updated version. This one is much punchier.
Title: Iran Gen.: Our finger is always on the trigger
Bullet Points:
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards test fire long and medium range missiles
NEW: Iranian general: “Our finger is always on the trigger”
NEW: U.S.: Iran is “as serious… a problem as any we face today
Missile tests were part of Iranians war games in the Persian Gulf
Paragraph 2 and 3:
“We want to tell the world that those who conduct their foreign policy by using the language of threat against Iran have to know that our finger is always on the trigger and we have hundreds and even thousands of missiles ready to be fired against predetermined targets,” Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of the Revolutionary Guard ground forces, said on state TV.
“We will chase the enemies on the ground and in the sky and we are able react strongly to enemy’s threats in shortest possible time.”
So here we have a slightly different narrative (bolded).
Note how any mention of outside influence is relegated to a minor point of the story. This is how you war-monger in print.
————-
The articles then move a bit towards each other in content. With the updated one including the following.
There are worldwide worries that Israel, which is concerned by Iran’s plans, is pondering a unilateral strike.
Israel’s recent aerial military exercise was in part an effort to send a message that it has the capability to attack Iran’s nuclear program.
The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be involved in a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, a U.S. military official said.
In 1981, Israel attacked a nuclear facility in Iraq. Israel also struck a site in Syria that some say was a nuclear reactor under construction.
One Israeli Cabinet member, Shaul Mofaz, recently said it “will attack” Iran if the nuclear program was not halted.
So that’s where we are there. This is a confrontation between Israel (not a signatory of the NPT (Nucular [sic] Non-Proliferation Treaty) and has nukes) and Iran (signatory of the NPT and has a large number conventional missiles).
GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States, marking the 40th anniversary of the fraying nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said on Tuesday it was concerned that countries like Iran had “violated” the pact.
Garold Larson, deputy U.S. ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, also urged the NPT’s near-global membership to deter violators from withdrawing from the treaty in the future.
—
Speaking to a U.N. seminar in Geneva celebrating the 40th anniversary of the NPT, which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, Larson said the past two decades had witnessed the proliferation and misuse of nuclear technology.
“The United States remains very concerned that parties like Iran have violated their commitments and thereby undermined the treaty,” he said.
—
Larson did not refer to U.S. intelligence findings that Syria covertly tried to build an atomic reactor with North Korean help at a site bombed by Israel last year. Syria denies the accusations.
Investigators from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency said after a four-day visit to Syria last week that they had examined the site but that more checks were needed.
Unlike Syria, Israel has not signed the NPT. It is widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East.
So, we take a swipe at one group and look the other way from the other
And as we look over the horizon half-way around the world…we see this…
A photo of Iranian missiles being test-fired yesterday was “apparently digitally altered to show four missiles rising into the air instead of three,” according to Agence France-Presse.
The image, which the wire service says it obtained from a website controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, appeared in newspapers and blogs across the world, including USA TODAY and On Deadline.
The Lede blog says “the second missile from the right appears to be the sum of two other missiles in the image.”
So the general idea here is that we are supposed to be deathly afraid, so afraid that we’ll allow for another “pre-emptive” attack, on Iran because of their fearsome arsenal.
Which has been photoshopped to look scarier.
Riiight.
I spent the vast majority of my life 15-minutes away from being vaporized by Crazy Ivan’s nukes launched from super-secret subs and tropical paradii.
Iranian editing skills don’t scare me. In the slightest.
Back Story With Eric Lichtblau (
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