Fox News host falsifies footage to make GOP protest look bigger

By John Byrne
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 -- 9:02 am

How many protesters were in attendance at Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachmann's tea party healthcare protest?

"I climbed the Capitol steps just before the event started so that I could get a good view of the whole crowd," the Washington Post's onetime White House reporter and columnist Dana Milbank wrote Friday. "I divided it into sections and counted. That's where I came up with 5,000. It's possible more came after I did my count, but nothing near 10,000."

A few dozen Republican House members attended, aimed at stirring up a crowd against Democrats' healthcare reform bill. Fox News' Sean Hannity interviewed Bachmann following the event.

"20,000+ people showed up," Hannity said. "Were you as surprised as I was?"

Bachmann smiled and replied.

After showing the clip, Stewart said: "Anywhere between 20 and 40,000 people. Or, as the Washington Post put it, 10,000."

Stewart then showed two clips Fox News employed to underscore the size of the event. He pointed out that the clips appeared to have been from two entirely different protests.

"I'm sorry, can we get back again," Stewart remarked. "That was weird. Because when that clip started, it was a clear fall day in Washington, D.C. Not a cloud in the sky, the leaves have changed.

"All of a sudden, the trees turn green again, and it's cloudy, and it looks like thousands and thousands of more people arrived," he continued. "If I didn't know any better, I would think they just put two different days together and acted like they didn't."

The bogus footage, Stewart found, actually came from a Sept. 12 protest two months ago, and was used on Fox News' Glenn Beck program two months ago.

This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast Nov. 10, 2009.

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/hannity-falsifies-footage-gop-protest-bigger/

Anatomy of a Bogus Subpoena: How the Government Demanded the IP Address of Every Visitor to Indymedia.us

http://twincities.indymedia.org/print/5530

Eight-year vigil damns Afghan war

Veterans Day or Rulers Day?

Wednesday 11 November 2009

by: Bob Richards, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

photo
(Photo: The U.S. Army; Edited: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

How is it that Veterans Day gets turned around into US Military Hegemony Day? The airwaves were buried under an avalanche of lip service about veterans, but the moving lips were all about the myth that the warfare decisions this country's rulers make have something to do with anyone's freedom. Just as soldiers and sailors are doing around the world today, I did in my time. I was there as a teenager, ignorant of the forces moving me, believing whatever line I was being fed.

I grew up on the hundreds of war/propaganda movies that came out of WWI, WWII and Korea. Today we are deluged with more nationalistic propaganda than ever before in my lifetime. It can't be avoided. The TV spews the images nearly nonstop. Recruiters are in our schools, along with the pop machines. The words Army, Navy and National Guard are on race cars at the drags and the ovals. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has been replaced with "America the Beautiful" with cordons placed at Yankee Stadium to keep fans from going to the bathroom while the dose of nationalism is served up.

Once a year the veterans are rolled out, but without a real veterans' voice. The physical support for veterans comes nowhere near what is needed. Suicides of veterans always wind up taking more lives than the wars that set them up.

It is important to some vets to keep believing the myth they fought for, that going into that foreign country had a bearing on anyone's freedom here. These are the vets who get a voice, as this is the only voice acceptable to the ruling powers. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War may have had some bearing on someone's freedoms, but even then, not everyone's. The former held only for white male property holders, and the latter for humans who were property themselves. In both of these cases, those native to these lands could not be included, as they were busy at the time being relieved of their homelands and freedom.

If you want to thank anyone for your rights and freedoms, thank an activist. No soldier ended segregation in the 1960's. No sailor got women the vote. No National Guardsman got you the 40-hour week or took children off the shop floors or out of the mines. No, they were called out by the states to kill the very people who were fighting for the rights they eventually won for you.

Mostly what the vets have done is to be tricked into serving the forces that have used them, and in many cases, used them up. The vets deserve your support mostly because they believed, and gave what was asked, and were promised something in exchange. When promise-keeping time comes up, they find they have to get in a line and wait and then they must fight to receive what was promised. In many cases, what they get is enough for a little cheap wine and a bed at a shelter. These aren't the vets that get dragged out before the game or race, or at half-time. Nope, those vets are the believers. The "presentable" ones.

So, here we are at war to get Unocal's dream pipeline route across Afghanistan secured and prop up that ex-Unocal employee's stolen election. Then there's still that war we don't talk about so much anymore. The one that the lie to get us in there changed nearly every day, when the truth may have been as simple as the Decider told us himself, that Saddam tried to kill his daddy, and that he would use that war for his own ends.

These two wars send home more corpses and vets every day. These vets are more often acute cases needing the highest levels of attention, overloading the system and triaging the old farts back down the waiting lines. The government will front load the wars with the drones, missiles, guns, mines, ships, planes and trained bodies as its priority. It will use up more than it gets from its taxpayers and hand the debts to the future, and vets will fight for crumbs. This is the record from every war the country has ever done. Still, its propaganda works, and it won't have any trouble finding believers to march in the parades. It can parlay that percentage into a rock-solid myth and keep the guns-and-butter gravy train rolling along.

http://www.truthout.org/1111091?print

Power cut hits millions in Brazil

A massive power failure has blacked out Brazil's two largest cities and other parts of the country, leaving millions of people without electricity and causing widespread traffic chaos.

The outage on Tuesday evening began when the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, which supplies much of the country's electricity, suddenly went offline plunging parts of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other Brazilian cities into darkness.

The cause of the failure has not been established, although power to some areas of the country had been restored as of late Tuesday, more than two hours after the outage hit.

The blackout had triggered a huge police mobilisation amid fears of an opportunistic crime wave.

Parts of neighbouring Paraguay, which also receives power from the Itaipu dam, were also affected.

The huge dam straddles the border between Paraguay and Brazil.

The power cut first hit at about 10:20pm local time (1220GMT Wednesday), snarling streets in Rio after traffic lights stopped working.

Subway rail services were also knocked out in both Rio and Sao Paulo.

Edson Lobao, Brazil's mines and energy minister, said strong storms had uprooted trees near the dam just before it went offline and could be to blame for the sudden outage.

The blackouts came three days after a report on US TV network CBS said that several past power outages in Brazil had been caused by hackers attacking electricity control and distribution systems.

Maria Elena Romero, a journalist in Sao Paulo, told Al Jazeera: "There are also reports of Paraguay being affected by the same power outages.

"The minister of the energy of Brazil has confirmed that the outage was caused by the failure of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam. The minister didn't want to speculate on the causes for this failure, but local media say weather conditions could be the reason."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/11/2009111132727141870.html

Iraq Veterans Against the War - Why we're against the war

A: Why are veterans, active duty, and National Guard men and women opposed to the war in Iraq?

The Iraq war is based on lies and deception.


The Bush Administration planned for an attack against Iraq before September 11th, 2001. They used the false pretense of an imminent nuclear, chemical and biological weapons threat to deceive Congress into rationalizing this unnecessary conflict. They hide our casualties of war by banning the filming of our fallen's caskets when they arrive home, and when they refuse to allow the media into Walter Reed Hospital and other Veterans Administration facilities which are overflowing with maimed and traumatized veterans.

For further reading: www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/index.html

The Iraq war violates international law.

The United States assaulted and occupied Iraq without the consent of the UN Security Council. In doing so they violated the same body of laws they accused Iraq of breaching.

For further reading:

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm

http://www.westpointgradsagainstthewar.org/

Corporate profiteering is driving the war in Iraq.

From privately contracted soldiers and linguists to no-bid reconstruction contracts and multinational oil negotiations, those who benefit the most in this conflict are those who suffer the least. The United States has chosen a path that directly contradicts President Eisenhower's farewell warning regarding the military industrial complex. As long as those in power are not held accountable, they will continue... 

For further reading:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0714-01.htm


http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/

Overwhelming civilian casualties are a daily occurrence in Iraq.

Despite attempts in training and technological sophistication, large-scale civilian death is both a direct and indirect result of United States aggression in Iraq.  Even the most conservative estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths number over 100,000. Currently over 100 civilians die every day in Baghdad alone.For further reading:


http://www.nomorevictims.org/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70A1EF73C5A0C758DDDA10894DE404482

Soldiers have the right to refuse illegal war.

All in service to this country swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. However, they are prosecuted if they object to serve in a war they see as illegal under our Constitution. As such, our brothers and sisters are paying the price for political incompetence, forced to fight in a war instead of having been sufficiently trained to carry out the task of nation-building.


For further reading:

http://thankyoult.live.radicaldesigns.org/content/view/172/

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qa6ZHYcG_EM

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1dAXQeH7y9g&mode=related&search=

http://girightshotline.org

Service members are facing serious health consequences due to our Government's negligence.

Many of our troops have already been deployed to Iraq for two, three, and even four tours of duty averaging eleven months each.  Combat stress, exhaustion, and bearing witness to the horrors of war contribute to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a serious set of symptoms that can lead to depression, illness, violent behavior, and even suicide. Additionally, depleted uranium, Lariam, insufficient body armor and infectious diseases are just a few of the health risks which accompany an immorally planned and incompetently executed war. Finally, upon a soldier's release, the Veterans Administration is far too under-funded to fully deal with the magnitude of veterans in need.


For further reading:

http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/

http://www.vets4vets.us/

The war in Iraq is tearing our families apart.

The use of stop-loss on active duty troops and the unnecessarily lengthy and repeat active tours by Guard and Reserve troops place enough strain on our military families, even without being forced to sacrifice their loved ones for this ongoing political experiment in the Middle East.


For further reading: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_loss_092704,00.html

The Iraq war is robbing us of funding sorely needed here at home.

$10.3 billion per month is spent on a war which could have aided the victims of Hurricane Katrina, gone to impoverished schools, the construction of hospitals and health care systems, tax cut initiatives, and a host of domestic programs that have all been gutted in the wake of the war in Iraq.

For further reading:

http://www.costofwar.com

The war dehumanizes Iraqis and denies them their right to self-determination.

Iraqis are subjected to humiliating and violent checkpoints, searches and home raids on a daily basis.  The current Iraqi government is in place solely because of the U.S. military occupation.  The Iraqi government doesn’t have the popular support of the Iraqi people, nor does it have power or authority.  For many Iraqis the current government is seen as a puppet regime for the U.S. occupation.  It is undemocratic and in violation of Iraq’s own right to self-governance.


For further reading:

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Our military is being exhausted by repeated deployments, involuntary extensions, and activations of the Reserve and National Guard.

The majority of troops in Iraq right now are there for at least their second tour.  Deployments to Iraq are becoming longer and many of our service members are facing involuntary extensions and recalls to active duty.  Longstanding policies to limit the duration and frequency of deployments for our part-time National Guard troops are now being overturned to allow for repeated, back-to-back tours in Iraq.  These repeated, extended combat tours are taking a huge toll on our troops, their families, and their communities.


For further reading:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-military12jan12,0,7198945.story?coll=la-home-headlines

 (back to the top)

A: Why do Iraq Veterans Against the War call for the immediate withdrawal from Iraq?

The reasons and rationale given for the invasion were fraudulent.

There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq during the time of the invasion according to US officials and former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. The idea that Al Qeada and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were connected to Saddam Hussein and the Baath party were proven false in the 9/11 Commission Report. Members of the Bush Administration have admitted that they “misspoke” in the run up to the war.

The presence of the US military is not preventing sectarian violence.

The US occupation of Iraq has proven to be unable to prevent sectarian violence and halt an escalation towards a civil war. Despite having an average of 140,000 troops in country since the occupation began, internal violence and attacks against civilians and Iraqi security forces have been on a steady incline.

The occupation is a primary motivation for the insurgency and global religious extremism.

The insurgency can be broken down into many individually named factions with various goals, beliefs, and techniques. However, our membership of veterans believe that the occupation of Iraq is the primary thing encouraging the insurgency and giving it legitimacy in the eyes of many Iraqis. Likewise, other people of the Islamic faith are encouraged to resist America ’s policies internationally based on how they perceive our military operations in the Middle East.

We can no longer afford to fight this war of choice.


The financial burden is destroying our domestic programs that could be used to protect us from natural disasters, provide medical programs, or help improve education. We are jeopardizing the US economy and putting strains on the budgets of important government agencies like the Veterans Affairs Department.

National security is compromised.

Funds that could be used to protect our ports and transportation are being stripped away while our National Guard units are on constant deployments instead of being used to protect and defend us here at home.

The world is becoming more dangerous.

International terrorist attacks have increased and it has become more dangerous for Americans to travel abroad. Approval for US policy has decreased and the dislike of Americans has increased.

Our national “moral authority” is being undermined.

The US has lost credibility to much of the world as the defender of liberty and freedom and our national identity is eroding. We can no longer deploy our armed forces for peace keeping measures with the good faith of the international community. We need to regain the respect and faith of the global community. This begins by withdrawing our troops from Iraq and helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country and society.

The majority of American citizens, Iraqi citizens and US military would like to see an immediate end to the war in Iraq.

If we are truly a democracy and we aim to create a democracy in Iraq our leaders will represent the will of the citizens and lead according to their wishes.

The military is broken.

We are abusing the small population of armed service members with multiple deployments while using inadequate vehicles and equipment. Less than one half of a percent of the American population is serving in the active armed forces, which is the least amount in the last century. Only 25% of the troops in Iraq are there for their first tour, while 50% are there on their second tour, and the remaining 25% are there three times or more. We continue to involuntarily extend soldiers with Stop-Loss, recall them repeatedly for additional service using the Individual Ready Reserve, and send soldiers with diagnosed medical problems into combat.

http://www.ivaw.org/faq