“You are a liar, Mr. Bush, and after showing some skill at it initially, you have ceased to even be a very good liar.”

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It is reported that Fox News, the house-channel of the Republican party, was caught with its pants down sabotaging Wikipedia entries. The Wikipedia is a hugely successful and valuable wordwide  resource that relies on the honesty and integrity of its contributers, who can submit and amend entries to the internet encycopaedia . Fox News has allegedly been abusing this to change the Wikipedia entries of their critics and competition (like Al Franken) .  A scanning device introduced by Wikipedia was able to trace the changes back to a Fox News IP address.

Here is an example of a Wikipedia entry which originally (and accurately) read :

- The lawsuit focused a great deal of media attention upon Franken’s book and greatly enhanced its sales. Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the National Public Radio program “Fresh Air” on September 3, 2003, Franken said that Fox’s case against him was “literally laughed out of court” and that “wholly (holy) without merit” is a good characterization of Fox News itself.

but this is how it was altered by Fox :

- The lawsuit focused a great deal of media attention upon Franken’s book and greatly enhanced its sales. Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the liberal National Public Radio program “Fresh Air” on September 3, 2003, Franken said that Fox’s case against him was the best thing to happen to his book sales.

Walken is not the only one who’s entry suffered in this way. Also targeted by Fox were  Keith Olbermann, Chris Wallace,  Shepard Smith and Brit Hume.

Many companies use Wikipedia to build their own image, reputation and search rankings, but when it comes to damaging the Wikipedia entries of their competition and changing actual comments this clearly crosses the line. Misrepresenting the sense of what someone says is the direct opposite of what any news channel should be doing, but of course few outside of the US regard Fox news as a legitimate or even serious ‘news channel’. Their daily editorial ‘memos’, directing what the public should see, are alleged to closely mirror the official Republican ‘talking points’ on any given day. Generally speaking Fox news, although popular with some sections of the American public, is notorious around the world for its unbalanced and biased reporting.

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Hot on the heels of Karl Rove (Bushs Brain) quitting and ‘Scooter’ Libby being handed a jail sentence there is breaking news that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is also deserting the sinking ship. Long gone also are Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. It looks like the whole rotten neo-con pack of cards is finally starting to collapse around Bushs ears and for that the American people can only be thankful.

Gonzalez (who notoriously seemed to justify the use of torture by American troops) has resigned ending a months long standoff with critics who questioned his honesty and competence at the helm of the Justice Department. Republicans and Democrats alike have demanded his resignation over the botched handling of FBI terror investigations and the firings of U.S. attorneys, but President Bush had defiantly stood by his Texas friend until accepting his resignation Friday. It is understood that Solicitor General Paul Clement will be acting attorney general until a replacement is found..

Gonzales served more than two years as the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general but other lawmakers voiced doubts about his truthfulness in combative and often evasive testimony to Congress. Although Democrats most fiercely questioned Gonzales’ stewardship of the nation’s law enforcement establishment, several Republicans in Congress criticized him too.

For his part, Bush steadfastly, and often with his characteristic belligerence when questioned, refused to give in to critics, even from his own GOP, who argued that Gonzales should go. Earlier this month at a news conference, the president grew irritated when asked about accountability in his administration and turned the tables on the Democratic Congress. “Implicit in your questions is that Al Gonzales did something wrong. I haven’t seen Congress say he’s done anything wrong,” Bush said testily.

Reacting to Monday’s developments, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said that Gonzales’ department had “suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence.” He said that Gonzales’s resignation “reinforces what Congress and the American people already know—that no Justice Department should be allowed to become a political arm of the White House.”

A frequent Democratic target, Gonzales could not satisfy critics who said he had lost credibility over the Justice Department’s handling of warrantless wiretaps related to the threat of terrorism and the firings of several U.S. attorneys. As attorney general and earlier as White House counsel, Gonzales pushed for expanded presidential powers, including the eavesdropping authority. He drafted controversial rules for military war tribunals and sought to limit the legal rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, prompting lawsuits by civil libertarians who said the government was violating the Constitution in its pursuit of alleged ‘terrorists’.

There were indications that the development came suddenly. Bush normally handles Cabinet resignations with efficiency, only allowing news of them to leak when a successor has been chosen and appearing with both the person departing and the replacement when the public announcement was made. That was not to be the case this time, the official said.

Lawmakers said the dismissals of the federal prosecutors appeared to be politically motivated, and some of the fired U.S. attorneys said they felt pressured to investigate Democrats before elections. In other words they were being asked to act as hatchet-men for Bush which, if true, is the most heinous subversion of the American justice system and would warrant the impeachment of any President who had any knowledge of such activities. Gonzales has maintained that the dismissals were based the prosecutors’ lackluster performance records but his denials have not been widely believed.

Thousands of documents released by the Justice Department show a White House plot, hatched shortly after the 2004 elections, to replace U.S. attorneys. At one point, senior White House officials, including Rove, suggested replacing all 93 prosecutors. In December 2006, eight were ordered to resign. In several House and Senate hearings into the firings, Gonzales and other Justice Department officials failed to fully explain the ousters without contradicting each other. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, and can be removed. But congressional Democrats said politics played an unusually critical role in the ouster of several prosecutors.

In 2004, Gonzales pressed to reauthorize a secret domestic spying program over the Justice Department’s protests. Gonzales was White House counsel at the time and during a dramatic hospital confrontation he and then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card sought approval from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was in intensive care. Ashcroft refused.

The White House subsequently reauthorized the program without the department’s approval. Later, Bush ordered changes to the program to help the department defend its legality. The domestic surveillance program was later declared unconstitutional by a federal judge and since has been changed to require court approval before surveillance can be conducted.

Similarly, Gonzales found himself on the defensive in early March for FBI’s improper and, in some cases, illegal prying into Americans’ personal information during terror and spy probes. On March 9, the Justice Department’s inspector general released an audit showing that FBI agents, over a three-year period, demanded telephone and Internet companies to hand over their customers’ personal information without official authorization.

The damning audit also found that the FBI had improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances, and concluded that it underreported to Congress how often it used national security letters to ask businesses to turn over customer data. The letters are administrative subpoenas that do not require a judge’s approval.

We’re into the endgame now, folks. Gonzalez is gone. America is a better place today for that. But it is just another small step towards the bigger clean-out thats essential to restore any pride to the nation. Gonzalez was just the puppet of a corrupt and desperately un-American regime. The big task remains .

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George Bushs brain (as he is generally known) Karl Rove appears unlikely to slip quietly into retirement. Bush ’strategists’ in the last two elections plumbed new depths in dirty tactics and we wait uneasily for the tidal wave of black propoganda in the run up to the next election but it seems that there is every possibility that in the coming weeks Rove will begin to direct attacks on Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“The Democrats are going to choose a nominee. I believe it’s going to be her,” President Bush’s departing political adviser said on Sunday. Rove, not an elected politician or accountable in any way to the public, nevertheless found it necessary to appear on THREE Sunday talk shows after announcing last week he was leaving the White House at the end of the month to spend more time with his family.  Asked why he was helping Clinton by saying she would headline the ticket, Rove said disingenuously: “Didn’t know that I was. Don’t think that I am.”. Yeah right Karl ! You’re just a babe in the woods at negative politicking. We all believe that.

Rove followed up with harsh remarks about Hilary Clintons negative public opnion ratings. Well lets think back a little, shall we ?  In 2004 Bush’s re-election team aimed its harshest comments at John Kerry, the eventual nominee, because it wanted Bush to take on Kerry rather than Edwards, then a senator from North Carolina. Thats not my opinion.  Thats what Bush’s former pollster and strategist Matthew Dowd reportedly said at a 2004 Harvard University conference, that Bush’s re-election team went after Kerry because they were more afraid of Edwards. Don’t you just love honest politics ?

Asked whether he was attacking Clinton because the GOP feared Obama, Rove replied: “I read that in the LA Times this morning. Those, those guys out in LA have got to get clued in. I mean, come on.” Asked for his opinions on Obama, Rove demurred. “I’ve said enough,” he said.  You have to laugh. Right again Karl. You wouldn’t ever want to manipulate public opinion or anything, would you ?

At a Democratic debate in Iowa on Sunday, Clinton responded to Rove’s criticism. “I don’t think Karl Rove is going to endorse me, but I find it interesting that he’s obsessed with me,” she said. She said no candidate will escape the “Republican attack machine,” and added: “I know how to beat them.”

Last week, Clinton’s campaign ran a television ad saying struggling families and U.S. troops are “invisible” to Bush. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino called that “unconscionable.” Rove said that was laughable.  Hmmm .. but are the thousands of struggling American families and the neglected and ignored troops really laughing Karl ? I wonder.

Rove, in the news recently over the unamerican dirty tricks that saw Scooter Libby handed a jail sentance, also commented that he doesn’t think he owes an apology to Valerie Plame who was ‘outed’ as a CIA operative by newspaper columnist Robert Novak’s in 2003, shortly after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, began criticizing the administration’s rush to war in Iraq. Rove said he had indeed talked to Novak about Plame, but said he did not confirm that she worked for the CIA only that he, too, had heard that she did.

Predicting that Democratic-led investigations into  U.S. attorney firings and other matters would follow him after he quits the White House , a decision he insisted was not in response to probes on Capitol Hill, Rove said .. ..”They’ll keep after me,” . Well lets really hope so Karl. There are a LOT of questions still to be answered about the Valerie Plame scandal that saw the life of a loyal American CIA operative put at risk for political revenge and about the rumbling scandal of the US attorney firings that is not about to go away. The country needs some answers.

Rove appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

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In a move that reeks of hypocrisy and double-standards, the Bush administration has signed a deal that will provide Israel with $30bn (£14.8bn) of military aid over the next 10 years. Lest we forget, it is the Bush administration which has so vehemently condemned what it alleges are Irans atempts to provide small-scale military asistance to insurgents in Iraq and those opposing Israels occupation of Palestinian land. You would have wonder, as an objective observer, what the Bush administration would say if any other country tried to supply $30billion dollars of killing machines to any opponents of Israel in the middle east.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has said the aid will preserve his country’s military advantage over other countries in the Middle East. The new military aid package represents a massive 25% increase from present levels. The Bush administration also announced multi-billion-dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Gulf states last month. Washington says it wants to help its allies in the Middle East meet their security needs and counter the growing power of Iran in the region. Opponents say that the USA is engaging in a dangerous escalation of arms supply which will undoubtedly inflame an already desperate situation.Mr Burns, with sinister echoes of George Orwells 1984, called the $30 billion package of killing machines an “investment in peace”. The money must be used to purchase military equipment from the US defence industry, although Israel will also be permitted to use 26.3% to buy equipment from local companies. So coincidentally an indirect boost to Bushs friends in the weapons industry at the expense of the American taxpayer ? The arrangement requires Congressional approval, but Mr Burns said he thought there would be little opposition. Sadly, he is probably right.

Now I do not for one moment dispute the right of Israel to exist, although I firmly believe that its illegal occupation of Palestinian land remains a festering sore in the middle east that will fan the flames of conflict for as long as it goes on. It is quite likely, although not proven, that other countries like Iran and Syria are supplying various resistance groups .. insurgents .. call them what you will .. with very low-level assistance in terms of hardware, A few rifles, bits of explosive, certainly nothing large-scale like warplanes or tanks or cluster bombs or other sophisticated weaponry. It is an indisputable fact, however, that the Bush administration is pouring huge and unprecedented levels of weaponry into Israel which will do nothing but perpetuate the present desperate conflict. In terms of meddling where it has no business, America stands head and shoulders over any other power in the middle-east. But the truth is that for as long as Israel has the overwhelming military and nuclear superiority that it enjoys over its neighbors there is very little incentive for a moderate compromise to be reached. I am painting no-one exclusively as the bad guys because in the first place I do not go in for such simplistic bullshit and secondly because there is genuinely fault on all sides, but one-sided massive injections of killing machines is NOT the solution.

The only power on earth that might bring peace to the middle east right now is America and since he was elected president Bush has stubbornly and steadfastly refused to do a damn thing to help . All he seems to be capable of doing is to pour even more weapons into one of the longest-running and most bloody conflicts in modern times. It is exactly like throwing gasoline onto a fire. Whatever your feelings about Israel, and I know some Americans have a strange loyalty that defies logic or morality, what Bush is doing is really NOT the answer. In fact, it is the problem.al quaeda, atrocity, Bush, civilian killing, Israel, Political News, republican, terrorism, war on terror

A Whitehouse spokesman said “Obviously it’s a big loss to us, “he’s a great colleague, a good friend, and a brilliant mind. He will be greatly missed, but we know he wouldn’t be going if he wasn’t sure this was the right time to be giving more to his family, his wife Darby and their son. He will continue to be one of the president’s greatest friends.”

Mr. Rove, 56 years old, has been embroiled in many White House controversies in Mr. Bush’s second term, and faced investigation — but somehow miraculously escaped indictement — in the scandalous White House leak case that brought down Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. He also has become a target of intense scrutiny in Congress over the firings of a number of U.S. attorneys in an alleged attempt to subvert the American justice system, a charge far more serious than that which saw Nixon booted out of office. Mr. Rove and his political operatives in the White House had some involvement with the decision, but the extent of their role remains murky, because the White House has shamefully asserted executive privilege in refusing to comply with congressional demands for documents and interviews, including with Mr. Rove. Mr. Rove’s departure is likely to lessen the intensity of that potential constitutional clash.

Mr Rove was allegedly the mastermind behind the unholy alliance between the Bush neo-con camp and the loony-toon religious right that swept the republicans to power initially but which has since degenerated into bitter bickering over failed expectations. Whenever there were dirty tricks to be played in the political arena, reputations to be ruined, decent men and women to be smeared, there are those who claimed to see the hand of Karl Rove at work. So his departure will be seen by many as a serious loss to Bush, but a huge victory for America and the American people.

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