We are soooooooo sick of A.merican P.ropaganda's phony "political commentary," phony polls, and endless efforts to try to make Bush look good through news suppression, spin, and unquestioning dissemination of lies. As the largest news service, America is trapped by AP. Any Democrat out there in the trenches knows that the groundswell of black voters committed to going to the polls on Nov. 2 and voting AGAINST Bush is historic in proportions. But now, in addition to Repug efforts to block blacks from voting through any manipulation possible, we have A.P. using a fudged poll to try to convince us all that black support for Dems has "eroded" since 2000! That's about as outrageous as trying to convince readers "American Idol" just really wasn't that popular. To think this kind of trickery will somehow influence black voters is demeaning and insulting. But not to worry - A.P. will - among others - be the subject of predicted post-election investigations.

How, asks David Shaw, could the public's perception of Kerry change so dramatically after 90 minutes of debate "without benefit of any real knockout punches by him or serious blunders by Bush, without a genuine, confrontational debate format?... What I think happened in that first debate is that Americans had the chance to see (and evaluate) both men standing and speaking on their own, without the filter of handlers or the news media." Which means, says Shaw, that until that moment, the media had systematically manipulated public opinion by artificially propping Bush up, while suppressing the truth about Kerry. "The news media are not supposed to obfuscate or exaggerate. They're supposed to illuminate. They're supposed to strip away the filters, counter the spin and give the voters as clear a picture as possible of who the candidates really are and what they really stand for." In short, the media betrayed America and MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

Lisa Myers is one of the most insidious propagandists out there - she seems almost CIA trained sometimes (remember the CIA's "Operation Mockingbird" that had scores of reporters on the payroll?). For example, she will present a story on, say "accusations that Iraq funds have been misappropriated" or some other topic that sounds like it might be a real investigation. But then the "investigation" inevitably turns out to a Trojan horse that simply presents the White House's spin on whatever the topic happens to be. She does this so often it's almost a "signature." And so here we have "Mockingbird Myers" with her latest White House spin job, this one pretending to be "debate fact checking."

So Sumner Redstone simply has admitted what is true of ALL the US corporate media: It's all about the GREED - the American public and the democratic system be damned. Redstone officially endorsed Bush for president, saying "I look at the election from what's good for Viacom. I vote for what's good for Viacom. I vote, today, Viacom."

The more Kerry speaks out, making the differences between him and Bush sharper by the day, the harder the corporate media - led by A.merican P.ropaganda (AP) - tries to blur the difference using a trick we call the "6 of one half-dozen of the other" scam. Examples: "Bush, Kerry campaigns twist each other's messages". The article tries to make the bogus case that Kerry is "just as bad"(LOL!) Or how about this one: "Bush, Kerry Economic Budgets Exceed $1 Trillion." Except the article doesn't mention that most of Kerry's funds go BACK into helping middle-income and poorer Americans, while Bush's budget ultimately takes money away from these groups Here's another: "Kerry, DNC follow Bush's Lead on Ads" Real story: Bush's bending of the campaign laws, to tap an extra $93 million forced Kerry to act in self defense. or "Kerry, Bush Terrorism Plans Similar." Yeah, right! What's really sneaky is that AP seeks to APPEAR to be covering Kerry more - while using Kerry pieces as "Bush vehicles."

Oh what a tangled web we weave...! Just a month ago, the Washington Post made a big fat phony show of repudiating their shameless pro-Bush manipulation of the news. Gee, we're so sorry we helped promote a war that has killed over 1,000 American troops, they whined with big crocodile tears. But since then, they have continued their warmongering, Bush-pumping assault unabated, simply becoming sneakier, not more honest. This latest takes the cake: Instead of running a post-convention poll in the Post, the Post's subsidiary Newsweek DID - using a near-fraudulent methodology that overrepresented Republicans and underrepresented Dems and Indies. Here's the contact info for Newsweek - call 'em and tell 'em what you think!

ABC reports: "Democrats on Sunday said Bush's post-convention bounce was triggered by 'four days of mean, vicious attacks' on John Kerry, and would be short-lived." Hmm...at least SOME Democrats say that. WE say the "bounce" was merely a mirage engineered by "Venezuela-style" polling by the media in an effort to try to psyche the Dems out and to set the stage for rigged results in November (sounds more like Venezuela all the time!). The state-by-state and consistent tracking polls (Rasmussen, for ex.) don't support these fishy results. And, just a few days before Time and Newsweek ran these bloated polls, they also ran extra-flattering pix of Bush on their covers. Nope, no collusion here! We plan to IGNORE these ploys.'

It's not enough that the rightwing now controls the media thru their corporate allies. Now they want to root out the dissent and diversity of cable TV programming. C. DeLores Tucker writes that the move seeks to replace cable as we know it "with a government mandated pay-per-channel (or "a la carte") regime where consumers would have to pay a set price for individual channels. And if these would-be regulators succeed, the diversity in cable programming -- a fruit of the civil rights movement -- will die with it. The ringleaders of the effort are a political odd-couple of sorts. For the ultra-conservative Concerned Women of America," known for their censorship campaigns. The current drive is a stealth attack - " 'censorship-lite' - an effort to filter out networks like MTV from America's homes.... Only the richest and most powerful programmers would survive in an a la carte world. Media concentration is bad policy and bad politics."

Columbia Journalism Review: "Just in case Rudy Giuliani forgot to hit an RNC talking point or two last night during his prime time Republican Convention address, he managed, unchallenged by CNN's Bill Hemmer, to get in another one this morning. " The point had already been debunked - and by none other than Chris Matthews himself, who proved that Kerry's statements had been manipulated with editing."Perhaps Matthews should ask CNN's Hemmer the same question he asked Dowd: "Would you like to have your sentences cut down to a third of their length and let people decide on the first three or four words what you meant by the 20 words?" Our bet is that the clueless Hemmer wouldn't even notice!

FAIR: "Instead of debunking the [Swift Boat fraud]. the press corps has devoted hours of broadcast time and considerable print attention to the group's message. 'The ad war, at least over John Kerry's service in Vietnam, has for the moment effectively blocked out everything else,' 'explained' MSNBC's David Shuster -- as if the media are not the ones responsible for deciding which issues were being 'blocked out!' Fox News reporter Carl Cameron suggested that 'the controversy has completely knocked Kerry off message, and the political impasse suggests the story is not going away any time soon.' But that 'impasse' is the media's own calculated doing! 'Even a cursory examination of the available evidence reveals fatal flaws in the group's charges, which fly in the face of all documentary evidence, and the testimony of almost every person present when Kerry earned his medals." But then, we're dealing with the corporate media, not real journalists.

The Post's protestations that it has learned the error of its manipulative ways are pure bull sh*t designed to lure the unsuspecting into believing that what they are seeing now and through Nov. 2 is actually "real reporting." Harhar. They are still using the same modus operandi as ever, just slightly sneakier. Their use of fudged, manipulatively timed polls continues unabated. The first day of the Dem convention, they had an "instant" poll showing Kerry losing ground as a headlining story, intentionally undercutting Convention coverage. Now for the GOP convention, on 8/31, they put a headlining poll story designed to MAXIMIZE Bush benefit from campaign coverage while hurting Kerry AGAIN. But this conveniently timed poll, was actually taken Aug 25-29 - right BEFORE the full impact of the revelation that the Swift Boat vets were frauds had hit. The Post staff are the worst kind of liars : Liars claiming not to lie anymore!

Cheryl Seal Writes: "Anyone who routinely scans multiple sources for news, taking in AFP, BBC, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, US Newswire, and other non-Bush-controlled sources will quickly begin to see the gaping holes in US corporate media coverage. Not only do these holes tend to be uniformly in the interests of G.W. Bush and his campaign, they are systematic: it is rare to find one of the members of the US media cartel breaking ranks and giving prominent coverage (as in not buried on page A22 or C12), to a story suppressed by the others. There are laws against price-fixing - a practice acknowledged by all as fraud. So why aren't there laws against 'news fixing?' It, too, is fraud....Now, with the GOP Convention, things in US Media land have gone from bad to WORSE!!

A.merican P.ropaganda, which presented pathetically inadequate and slanted coverage of the Democratic Convention, is pulling out the stops to squeeze every anti-Kerry drop it can under the guise of "convention coverage." Here's a slime sample: "Republicans left no doubt how they feel about John Kerry: He's a waffling, tax-raising political opportunist who can't be trusted with the nation's security. Setting the tone for the four-day GOP convention, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said, "My friends, this is no time to pick a leader who is weak on the war and wrong on taxes. George W. Bush is a strong leader with the right vision for America." Polls show the race tight, though Kerry has lost ground on his personal approval ratings since his convention." Of course they fail to mention the state-by-state polls showing Kerry gaining ground, nor to mention that the "lost ground" polls were all corporate polls taken BEFORE the Swift Boat fraud was exposed.

Word from those who observed the MTV video awards event is that the Bush girls were booed loudly when they were introduced. CNN and other Bushie media tried to hide this by pointing out that the booing started when BOTH sets of girls, Kerrys and Bushes were introduced in one sentence. HOWEVER, the cameramen showed a standing ovation for the Kerry girls, who were present (the Bush girls were on video), while 2/3 of the way through this CNN propaganda piece, it is admitted that when the Bush girls video speech segment ended, the booing stopped. Cheers began as the Kerry girls started to speak again. Yet CNN's headline reads: "Kerry, Bush Daughters Booed on MTV."

To coincide with the RNC convention, AOL/Time-Warner and the rest of the corporate media have stepped up their propaganda assault. While Time has until now has published fairly "for real" polls, they - and several corporate media outlets - have just released skewed polls showing Kerry losing ground to Bush - a result in contradiction of nearly every non-corporate poll. What makes this very ominous is that it suggests that, as Bush's real support crumbles, his corporate-politico-media machine is going to Plan B: Steal the election at the voting place. To cover the Bush election theft machine's butt, Time, AOL/CNN/AP, et al. MUST grind out phony polls so that the equally phony results from vote tampering will not seem so "unexpected."

Cheryl Seal wrote in June 2003: "Today the "Post" and its "accomplicesâ" in the White House use an impressive arsenal of CIA tactics in the service of Bush and his corporate pals. Real stories are routinely buried or killed, while phony or slanted pieces of propaganda are slickly worked onto page One. The Post played a huge role in fabricating and disseminating the Jessica Lynch myth, for example. It was then one of the slowest media outlets to address the exposed lie (it didn't get around to it until a week or so back). Because the paper is supposed to be the voice of OUR NATION'S CAPITOL, the Post's routine dissemination of disinformation is a far greater betrayal of America than it would be for the major paper of any other city. Only someone who has been around news rooms and knows something about how journalism is supposed to work would be able to spot the slickest stuff."

Back in March, 2002, Democrats.com's Cheryl Seal, then with Unknown News, was warning about the insidious practice routinely used by the rightwingers and their pals in the corporate publishing world to create "instant bestsellers" - without even needing real readers! - while suppressing liberal titles using the same sort of corporate manipulations.." Back then, Michael Moore was struggling to get HarperCollins to even RELEASE Stupid White Men, which went on to become a hit DESPITE the publisher. At the same time, the industry was creating overnight bestsellers out of rightwing turkeys through sales manipulations and "organized buys." We have a sneaking suspicion this is just what is happening with 'Unfit for Command' - a book claimed to be a runaway best seller that no one seems to ever have actually read. In fact, we hear someone 'in the know' plans to come forward and spill the beans...hope they decide to do so soon!

We were taking bets a few days back as to when MSNBC would crank out a new "poll" or set of "facts" showing that Bush has gained ground against Kerry as a way to offset the Swift boat fiasco. So here it is, and what a piece of badly written propaganda it is, too! First the headline says: "Swift Boat Defense Costs Kerry: Bush Squeaks into the Lead..." But if you read this rambling, barely coherent piece, you will find aboiut 2/3 thru that Kerry has, in fact not lost ground to Bush in polls! The headline, i.e., is false. In fact, if you check out the poll right on the same page as the article, you will discover that Bush trails Kerry 41% to 57%. And then, the remainder of the article is a gushing groupie puff piece on Cheney. This is journalism?

Here's an example of the ridiculous maneuvers the Bushie media is now undertaking to try excuse Bush's inconscionable anti-Kerry smear campaign: Writes Bushista Sharon Theimer of the Times and Democrat: "One of Bush's election lawyers also advises a group running ads against Democratic rival John Kerry. A Democratic Party attorney works for the group behind commercials that criticize Bush. Welcome to politics under a new campaign finance law." LOL! Trying to compare a Bush campaign lawyer working on a smear job that the [sic] president denies any connection with to a Democratic party attorney working for a grassroots campaign is comparing rotten lemons (Bush & Co.) to apples. The Dem lawyers mentioned in this article DO NOT WORK FOR KERRY - Ginsberg DOES work for Bush - so trying to compare the two is deceitful, to say the least. And, since when does campaign finance law force a [sic] president to LIE? Gee, maybe Clinton should have tried this:"Campaign finance law made me do it!"

Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell writes: "Analysts have since concluded that the vast majority of evidence that [Colin] Powell put forward was faulty or just plain bogus." But "The Post's primary news stories on the Powell speech were painfully credulous." In fact, "The editorial commentary from the Post that single, crucial, day [Feb 6 2003] deserves a special place in that Journalism 101 textbook." Check out these column, article, and editorial titles: Editorial: 'Irrefutable' [as in WMD evidence]; Richard Cohen: "A Winning Hand for Powell"; Jim Hoagland: "An Old Trooper's Smoking Gun"; George Will: "Disregarding the Deniers"; Mary McGrory: "I'm Persuaded"." Mitchell is too kind when he calls these journalistic sellouts merely "credulous." We can think of several more appropriate "c" words: cynical, callous, collusion, conscienceless...

While every mainstream news source in the US is now being forced to report (finally) the truth about the so-called 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,' the "Army Times" is taking full advantage of having a 'captive audience' (i.e. the US military) to continue to push innuendoes while suppressing the truth. This story includes real information to give it some credibility, but then carefully avoids exposing the BIG LIE: that none of the Phonies actually served with Kerry. In addition, the story omits the HUGEST part of the story - that the Phonies smear campaign originated from Bush & Co., and is the same group that slimed John McCain on Bush's behalf. This shows what scant respect some of the folks at Army Times have for their readers.

As anyone who has seen OUTFOXED knows, the Bushie media uses propaganda tactics that amount to fraud. One technique: out of 200,000 protestors, which may be dominated by a broad cross-section of Americans, from the elderly to the business-suited, FOX "newsfolk" were told to show only photos of freakie people. Until someone conducts a similar investigative treatment of AOL, it's getting away with the same tactics. On today's main page news, a photo of a "protestor" - a menacing looking "anarchist" with a mohawk and "bandit-style" bandana is shown, along with the inflammatory headline: "Their Target: Republicans." Inside there's a story about how the "same group" that acted out in Seattle would be in NYC...of course, it was FBI provocateurs who provoked the Seattle outbursts - but then, maybe that's who AOL is working with?

Now if these reporters being fined by a federal judge had been independent, non-corporate newsfolk in pursuit of a story that would have benefited the nation in some way, then we'd cheer them on for hanging tough on refusing to reveal their sources. But the reporters in question are from the NY Times, AP, CNN, and LA Times and the sources they are protecting were the ones whose smears against nuke scientist Wen ho Lee led to Lee's imprisonment in solitary for TWO YEARS for, as it proved, no reason. Thae other "heroic" (gag) newsperson in this story is Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, who was involved in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. In short, the Bushies and their media pals are trying to protect their right to "smear and run" journalism - not their right to report the truth.

Cheryl Seal writes: "Anyone who routinely scans multiple sources for news, taking in AFP, BBC, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, US Newswire, and other non-Bush-controlled sources will quickly begin to see the gaping holes in US corporate media coverage. Not only do these holes tend to be uniformly in the interests of G.W. Bush and his campaign, they are systematic: it is rare to find one of the members of the US media cartel breaking ranks and giving prominent coverage (as in not buried on page A22 or C12), to a story suppressed by the others. There are laws against price-fixing - a practice acknowledged by all as fraud. So why aren't there laws against 'news fixing?' It, too, is fraud."

Can you believe these vultures? The bodies have not yet been counted and the Bush campaign and its media minions at A.merican P.ropaganda are already speculating on how much political mileage Bush can get out of the tragic disaster! Not only is this sick, sick, sick, but it is pure fantasy to think Bush will BENEFIT from this unless he really has come to believe his own propaganda. The National Guard will not be available in sufficient strength to help out in clean up because so many are in Iraq. First responders will work under suboptimal conditions because they have inadequate resources and manpower thanks to Bush. There will be insufficient fed. workers to process disaster claims because they have been "downsized." The funds will not be quick in coming because Bush has nearly bankrupt the federal government. And for those who were unemployed and have now lost their homes as well, Bush will represent anything but a welcome figure.

William Saletan writes "Does Kerry now agree with Bush's decision? Would Kerry have gone into Iraq? Would he have voted to give Bush the authorization had Kerry known what he now knows about the absence of WMD and about how Bush would use the authorization?" No, says Saletan. Yet the RNC, using the same fraudulent tactics as Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, et al, has compliled doctored clips of Kerry's statement - yielding the very soundbytes the media then uses. Ex: Kerry: '"I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq." He calls Saddam a "renegade" who has betrayed the terms of his 1991 cease-fire. However, the RNC omits Kerry's next two sentences: "But the Administration's rhetoric has far exceeded their plans or their groundwork. In fact, their single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown rhetoric has alienated our allies and threatened to unravel the stability of the region." Saletan presents other examples as well of this fraud.

American Progress reports that in order to back his slanderous accusations against persons he has had on his show (John Podesta, for example) Sean Hannity "doctors" the audios. Not only does Hannity cut entire key statements, he splices together actual statements in a way that completely changes what was actually said. This amounts to fraud, re: the Merriman-Webster Dictionary of Law: " Any act, expression, omission, or concealment calculated to deceive another to his or her disadvantage; specifically : a misrepresentation or concealment with reference to some fact material to a transaction that is made with knowledge of its falsity or in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity and with the intent to deceive another."

Just two weeks ago, the NY Times was caught red-handed claiming Kerry pledged there would be no criticism of Bush at the Dem Convention. This false attribution skewed many journalists perception of the convention, and even kept some away. Now the Times is at it again - this time {via David Sanger} claiming Kerry's refusal to be drawn into Bush's cheap-shot attacks is because: "his aides and advisers concede, he has failed to get his message across, as [BushCheney] have mocked his efforts as "a new nuance" that amount to more examples of the senator's waffling aides." We happen to know that Kerry's "aides and advisors" never said any such thing. You will note that the writer fails to supply any supporting quote from "aides and advisors" and instead directly quotes people completely unconnected to Kerry or makes a vague attribution to "one of Mr. Kerry's Congressional colleagues and occasional advisers" no name given. And we bet the folks at the NYT still call this journalism!

AFP: "The Washington Post said Thursday its editors in the months leading up to the Iraq war underplayed stories questioning White House contentions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. "Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday," said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. Admits Asst. Man. Ed. Bob Woodward, "We were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale. We did our job [LOL!] but we didn't do enough, and I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder." There's NO excuse. Woodward, et al. knew EXACTLY what they were doing. We're waiting for the REAL confession: that they knowingly aided the war effort.

Read through this piece of A.merican P.ropaganda and you will soon discover that nowhere does Kerry actually state, as AP claims, that "he would have voted to authorize the war in Iraq knowing what he does now." What Kerry actually said is: "Yes, I would have voted for the AUTHORITY. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have." Kerry's vote was based on the scenario - presented and subsequently misused by Bush - that if the US were ACTUALLY UNDER ATTACK that the president could declare war and retaliate without waiting to convene Congress. But that was NOT what happened. We were NOT under attack nor in real danger of attack. But AP is helping Karl Rove with his latest strategy - promoting the idea that "there's no difference" between Kerry and Bush, esp. on the Iraq war. Tip: Read every AP article VERY carefully - this is not the first time they (and the NY Times) have attributed statements to Kerry he never made.

This week, NYT reported that the Nielsen Media Research ratings have been systematically manipulated to grossly underrepresented young males 18-34 and minorities. US Newswire: "This problem of inaccurate counting is especially acute for African American, Hispanic and other minority viewers. Under Nielsen's new Local People Meter rating system, these communities have experienced massive viewership undercounting. A recent audit of the system in New York City found that 1 out of every 6 homes Nielsen classified as African American were not African American. 1 in 14 homes classified as Hispanic were not Hispanic. And the percentage of households from which Nielsen failed to collect any viewing data was up to 60 percent higher among African American and Hispanic households than among the rest of the sample."

Jack Shafer writes in Slate: "Will somebody please suture a backbone to the Washington Post's coverage of this event? In the past two days, Post reporters Darryl Fears and Roxanne Roberts have filed credulous, pandering copy only one step removed from a press release. Fears celebrates the diplomatic miracle of black, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American journalist organizations overcoming mutual distrust to establish and run Unity as if they have negotiated eternal Middle East peace." But, says Shaefer, the Post never included a single answer to a relevant question. Questions like: How do minorities view US media coverage, and inclusion, of minorites? How do they feel about Bush? How do they feel about the deteriorating conditions for minorities in the past three years? Concludes Shafer: "This isn't reporting, this is videotaping your washing machine during its rinse cycle and playing it back for 800,000 readers."

While Laura 'The Formerly Literate' Bush went on Rupert Murdoch's O'Reilly Factor this week to complain of "media bias", thereby making a total fool of herself, Murdoch's "New York Post" was doing its darnedest to make a total fool of itself, too. From the idiotic 'Gephardt' headline to its mean-spirited collusion with NASA to procure a photo of Kerry in a sterilization suit, to its "gay inuendoes" in photos of Kerry and Edwards embracing, to its attempts to sabotage coverage of the Democratic Convention, the paper has lost all credibility: "By Friday (after the convention)," writes the NY Observer, "even the Post's frequent sympathizers couldn't muster any horror at Bush bashing. The clatter had cleared off, the battle was over, and wan affirmations that Mr. Kerry had seemed to stay on message had been the main report from the field. The Post had poured its 150-proof outrage into the punchbowl at the media party that was the Convention, but nobody else seemed to feel it."

Bush operatives play newsfolk like tin drums: the McCain VP pick lie, the Swift Boat Veterans for Peace Scam, and at least a dozen fallacies about Kerry's voting record, have all been planted by Bush people, then spread by the media. It's happened AGAIN! Seems the Bushies planted the rumor that only pap would to be spouted at the Democratic convention, so why bother covering it? FAIR reports: "Much of the broadcast coverage was framed by the idea that the Democrats were primarily concerned with setting a "positive" tone" - with no criticisms of Bush [which as any who heard the speeches knows is a lie]." Guess who promoted the rumor most prominently? The NY Times. Yep, the same paper that just recently apologized for slanting the news to help Bush. "The NYT (7/26/04) claimed that "the word has gone out from Kerry himself that speakers must accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative." But, in fact, no such statement was ever made.

Cheryl Seal writes: "The U.S. media has failed America and failed it miserably. It has systematically blocked, twisted, and slanted the truth. It is largely responsible for the fact that American soldiers are now dying at the rate of two per day in sweltering land where they are not wanted. It is responsible for the fact that the worst U.S. administration in history has a stranglehold over the nation. It is responsible for all that has followed from helping that administration into office: trashed environmental regulations, ruined international relationships, rampant greed and accelerating corruption among corporations.... If the media had told the truth over the past decade - the whole truth - and when the truth was in doubt actually sought to find what the truth was - America today would be a far different, far finer place. But the coverups and "coverage-for-cash" policy continues and has intensified..."

Tune into NBC (MSNBC) nightly news any evening and what you will be presented with is a major load (varying only in weight and density) of Bush propaganda, sprinkled lightly from time to time with "real news" stories and Kerry coverage that generally "damns with faint praise". Who determines news content these days? Not the writers and editors - they are basically fall guys. It is the media owners. And who owns NBC? General Electric. GE is one of the biggest military contractors (everything from lightbulbs to jet engines). GE donated vast sums to the Bush campaign and has a clear and vested interest in the unbridled promotion of the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned us about. And guess who, of all administrations the nation has ever seen, most embodies the military-industrial complex? Bush/Cheney.

USA Today, which had showed signs of becoming a real newspaper there for a while - even running challenging stories on key issues for a time - has been brought to heel by the White House. This week, not only did USA Today disseminate the latest bogus poll results (Gallup/CNN) they used the outcry these results caused (which conflict with all other less Bushie polls and state by state results) as a pretext for running a long story that, under the guise of a "news article" is a FREE Bush campaign spot that lists all the reasons people should vote for Bush, while citing Kerry's "failings." But we guess USA Today wasn't allowed by its White House handlers to cover the rally this week (for ex.) in Grand Rapids MI, where 20,000 people showed up to cheer Kerry on, while just 4,000 showed up down the street to see Bush! Once again, we wonder: Is the creation of polls showing Bush ahead a ploy to make a stolen election seem more credible?

Boston Globe: "Speaking before a crowd of Democrats, dignitaries, and journalists at Harvard University yesterday, PBS 'NewsHour' anchor Jim Lehrer rebuked the big three anchors for their networks' decision to air only three hours of prime-time coverage at each national convention this summer. 'I think that starting tomorrow, we're going to have four of the eight most important days we can have as a nation,' said Lehrer, criticizing CBS's Dan Rather, ABC's Peter Jennings, and NBC's Tom Brokaw for not getting more air time. 'I'm sorry. You guys are a hell of a lot more important than your bosses are willing to admit. 'Lehrer's remarks, which prompted audience applause, occurred during a seminar hosted by Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy that featured Brokaw, Rather, Jennings, Lehrer, and CNN "Inside Politics" anchor Judy Woodruff."

Wilson Ray: "On Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show' the other night, Jon Stewart asked CNN's Wolf Blitzer if the media failed the country by not asking tough questions of the Bush administration prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in the run up to war in Iraq last year. Borrowing a line from the 9/11 Commission report, he asked, was the press also guilty of 'group think,' or just 'retarded?' LOL. Putting aside the politically incorrect term 'retarded,' Blitzer said no one in the national press corps is afraid to ask tough questions, even though Bush comes up with nicknames for everyone as a way to make them cower. But he admitted the national press corps may be guilty of the same kind of 'group think' the commission said held back the U.S. intelligence agencies from connecting the dots from al Qaeda suicide attackers to American Airlines to the World Trade Center. So where is the call for a national commission on the failure of the news media on 9/11 and the run up to war in Iraq?" We agree!

We ironically ran across this latest vague terrorist warning just after posting an article about how the media is devoting four times more coverage to Bush than to Kerry. The FBI is now darkly warning that an "unnamed domestic terrorism group" plans to attack the media at the Democratic Convention. PULL-EEZE! For one thing, terrorists, esp. the home-grown variety, always rely on having intact newstrucks around, cameras rolling, to record their efforts. Secondly, the simultaneous specificity of this threat (claiming media targets) and vagueness is setting off our "smell test" sensors like alarms! We suspect that if the media is being "attacked" it is by the White House via this "warning," designed to disrupt coverage or provide an excuse for coverage blackouts!

CNN has admitted it now doctors the results of polls through a "weighting" system that skews the results toward Bush by at least 2 points. Of course, the polls were already skewed toward Bush before, so, with the added "weighting" this translates into, we estimate, about a 5-7% difference. This is important, because if electronic voting machines are rigged to pad Bush votes in Nov, "weighted polls" may be a way to reduce public suspicion (as in why is there this big discrepancy between polls and voting results). So when you read through this corporate poll from CBS/NY Times (both shameless Bushies), use our suggested formula - add 5 points to the spread between Kerry and Bush, and to the number of people who think the war was wrong. Ie, Kerry leads Bush about 52-43%, while 56% of Americans say the war was wrong.

We have spotted a new attack plan being tried by the BushMedia stategists: Push liberals toward Nader (to whose campaign the GOP has donated thousands) by making it appear that Kerry is as hawkish as Bush & Co. and thus that there is "very little difference" between Kerry and Bush. This AP (A.merican P.ropaganda) headline reads: Kerry backs much of [Bush's] preemptive doctrine" is completely distorted. Here is the statement it is based on: "Am I prepared as president to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have the sufficient intelligence? You bet I am." 'Go get them' as in send special forces in, no doubt. Not as in bombing the hell out an entire country. Last time we looked, there was a HUGE difference. In coming days, expect to see this distortion played up, followed by renewed calls of "there's no difference between the Dems and GOP."

Shortly after he finished building a replica of a 'mobile bioweapons lab' for major Bush contract recipient SAIC, Stephen Hatfill was smeared with the title of 'person of interest' by Ashcroft's FBI in its investigation of the anthrax terrorism case. No charges were brought, no concrete evidence produced. But Hatfill became a pariah for a time - making it highly unlikely anyone would have believed him if he'd tried to claim that the mobile lab so often touted by Bush as 'proof' of Saddam's WMDs was in fact one built by SAIC (no one knows for sure). Now Hatfill is fighting back against the people who colluded to villify him: the Justice Dept. and the NY Times.

On CBS evening news and in the NY Post, the story of Whoopi Goldberg's tirade against G.W. Bush at a Kerry fundraiser was completely, and intentionally misrepresented - so misrepresented as to amount to a manipulative lie. According to these two Bush News outlets, Goldberg "fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia." Sounds like at least a few f*cks and c*nts were involved, eh? Here's the lines CBS and the Post refer to "I Xeroxed my behind and I folded it up in an envelope and I sent it back with a big kiss mark on because we're Democrats - we're not afraid to laugh," and "Keep Bush where it belongs - not in the White House."

If you tune into NBC Nightly News, make sure you have a barf bag handy. There are few places this side of the Rush Limbaugh show shoveling up more shameless rightwing propaganda. On 6/29, for ex., we have Tom 'Tokyo Rose' Brokaw in Iraq, playing 'greatest generation wannabe' in his "sorta" military jacket, interviewing his new buddy Iyad Allawi, talking up the mythical Al-Queda-Saddam connection. Next up there's a story about the latest Bush bogeyman, Al-Zarqawi (notice how the Bushistas always have one 'mastermind' guy as the focus of their "war on terrorism"?).The report says Al-Zarqawi beheaded Nicholas Berg because Islam calls for such deeds. The deaths of three marines today was brushed off by Brokaw as near-trivial. He was far too busy shoveling up steaming loads of BS for the American public.

Wanna know one big reason that Kerry is failing to make as much headway against Bush as he SHOULD be doing? Her name is Nedra Pickler - also known as the "Pickler" by liberal bloggers who have, like us, identified her as a Bush campaign weapon disguised as a "real reporter." (she's even been cited by the Columbia Journalism Review blog). Pickler is AP's primary political correspondant covering the Kerry campaign. A large # of AP pieces we see on Kerry's campaign (not that there are many) are authored by Pickler. And they all have one thing in common: Cover Kerry, but always with a negative slant, while devoting half of each article to statements by rightwing mouth-frothers. Here is a classic piece of Pickler prose...note how the last 2/3 of the article are basically an anti-Kerry ad for the Bush reelection campaign. We wonder how much the Pickler is getting kicked back from the White House?

LOL! Bush is really having to stretch to give the impression that the media in swing state Ohio is behind him! Hence on C-SPAN on 6/21, speaking on the Bushie Washington Journal, we hear a clueless Bushie reporter for the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio named Jonathan Riskind. Riskind, from Columbus, purports to speak for the people of....Cincinnatti! (No coincidence, Bush is going to speak in Cincinnatti on 6.21)! Riskind showed his "vast knowledge' of US political history when he tried to slam Kerry by comparing him to Jimmy Carter, back in the 1980s! Last time we checked, Carter was president mostly in the 1970s (Jan 1977 - Jan 1981) ... but maybe Bush revisionist history has "adapted" that story. What's outrageous is that this dufus is the WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF for the Columbus Dispatch!

C-SPAN, like all the major media outlets, and altho still purporting to be "fair and unbiased" in allowing audience input, has fallen to the Bushies. They used to have one call in line for Democrats, one for Republicans. But then, guess what happened? (We know, we've been listening). Too many Republicans who DON'T support Bush started weighing in. So, to shut these dissenters off and give Freepers an even bigger chance to get through, they changed it to : DEMOCRATS, those who SUPPORT pRESIDENT BUSH, and those who SUPPORT OTHERS (right hand column on home page).So now, if you are a Republican who disagrees with Bush, you have no options, technically. And, if you are a Freeper (who pretend to be Independents or Dems just to get on, you have THREE options. Call C-SPAN and tell them what you think of this rigged set up!

Not only are corporate polls skewed now toward Bush, the reporting of polls showing Kerry ahead is also slanted, so ya can't win comin' or goin'! Take this report by Cox News Service reporting the results of a poll showing Kerry ahead of Bush. The Bushie reporter states that the poll was conducted by "Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg," and "sponsored by the liberal Mother Jones magazine and the Center for American Progress, a policy group founded by prominent Democrats." 'Course you'll never see a poll by FOX (for ex.) described as "conducted by Republican pollster so and so" and "sponsored by the ultraconservative FOX network, founded by prominent rightwing Bush supporter Rupert Murdoch." But guess knowing this poll was done by "liberals", at least we know it is probably pretty accurate.

As US newspapers like the NY Times, horrified by the consequences of their blind dissemination of unsupported Bush info, start breaking away from the propaganda machine, it's becoming easier to spot the hardcore White House mouthpieces. The Washington Times has been able to disquise itself as legitimate newspaper simply because its headlines and stories - until now - haven't differed all that much from those of real papers. So today, we have the W. Times promoting the Pentagon's smear campaign against Syria, both to justify the slaughter of a wedding party there last week and to help trump up an excuse for Bush to invade, possibly right before the election.

Here's a prime piece of White House-AP collusion. To explain why the US must now import gas as well as oil, the article claims that it's because the nation's refineries are all shutting down because the cost of complying with EPA regulations is just too darn high."Refiners are spending all of their money just meeting all the new [environmental] regulations," Bill Greehey of refiner Valero Energy Corp.said,. "They don't have the money for strategic projects to add to their capacity, so it's not surprising that we're short capacity." Oh, really, Bill? Is that why, despite breakdowns and fires at your existing refineries that Valeros profits have SOARED in the past three years? Gee, Bill, where IS all that money going? (see "Valero Profits Soar" http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2003/09/08/story4.htm)

Here's a classic example of White House collusion with its stable of rightwing pundits. Last week, a USA Today analysis of the spending patterns and political ad content of both the Kerry and Bush campaigns revealed that Bush is running what amounts to a costly Kerry smear campaign, while Kerry is focusing more on his own bio and issues. So now we are seeing a systematic spin defense launched by rightwing pundits such as Mickey Edwards. Edwards strategy is to try to reverse this, claiming it is Kerry who is conducting an "anti-Bush" campaign! Too bad the hard facts and figures don't support this assertion. (see http://www.wgy.com/script/headline_newsmanager.php?id=295379&pagecontent=nationalnews&feed_id=59) In any case, there's a BIG difference between focusing on the facts of current problems like gas prices and education (Kerry's strategy) and making false statements about your opponent's past (Bush's modus operandi).

Even the announcement opening the phone lines on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" was slanted on 5/20 when the topic was ANWR and the refilling of the SPR. Instead of announcing one phone line for Dems and one for Repugs, the emcee divided phone lines into "Those who support the Democrats" and "Those who support the President." (implying, of course, that the Democrats don't support the president, which means they don't support 'Merica!). The Freeper callers were a hoot! Like sitting through an bizarro world version of American Idol tryouts for "most convincing Freeper call." Some "contestants" stumbled through scripts a bit beyond their vocabularies or spouted idiotic "Bush sound science" statements like "Wildlife just love it wherever there oil drillin'!" On the up side - the whole assault smacked strongly of Repug desperation.

Tim Russert must have asked a question that wasn't on the White House "approved list" for this week's "Meet the Press." AP recounts: "In the broadcast, aired several hours after the interview was conducted, Powell abruptly disappears from view. Briefly seen are swaying palm trees and the water, backdrops for the interview. Powell can be heard saying to the aide, 'He's still asking a question.' The secretary then told Russert, "Tim, I'm sorry I lost you.' NBC identified the aide as Emily Miller, a deputy press secretary. Russert responded: 'I don't know who did that. I think that was one of your staff, Mr. Secretary.' The host added: 'I don't think that's appropriate.' With the cameras still on the water, Powell can be heard saying, 'Emily get out of the way.' " So Powell doesn't even have control over his own press people. So who is their real boss? Karl Rove?

Every honest journalist in the world, regardless of political affiliation would look at the first paragraph of this AP article and reach for their barf bag, just as every honest editor in the world would have canned the article - if not the author as well! :"Democrat John Kerry used a focus on veterans' health as a vehicle to tout his war-hero record, while prominent backers trotted out to disparage President Bush for a far less heroic history" This one paragraph managed to violate nearly every principle of reporting . It blatantly twists the objective facts - Kerry and his backers spoke on veterans issues and criticized Bush - with manipulative use of subjective adjectives ( touts.., trotted out.., "used" a focus".), turning a "news report" into a rightwing anti-Kerry commentary in one paragraph. But then most of what the corporate media puts out now is rightwing COMMENTARY, not real reporting. Real reporting is a lost art.

The US media has aided and abetted the Bush cause from day one and helped promote and support the lies that led to war and landed tens of thousands of US soldiers in a living hell they did not need to be. Even now, when the White House asked for the story of horrific abuse at Abu Ghraib to be suppressed, the media complied. Now the Guardian reports that one of the major drivers behind some of the prisoner abuse is the mistaken belief by many soldiers - one actively and persistently promoted by the US media - that the Iraqis they are dealing with are "responsible for 9/11." See paragraphs 12 and 12 of the article.

Bush, Rummy, Myers, et al. knew about the abuses at Abu Ghraib from at least January (this corporate "technicality ploy" about "not reading it" won't wash as an excuse). They sat on the report even when things were relatively quiet in Iraq last winter. But then when 60 Minutes was about to break the story, CBS kowtowed to White House pressure to suppress the story until Gen. Myers could spoon up preemptive spin via the same media. Worse, reports the Telegraph: "The Pentagon's response did not include warning Congress, which learned about Abu Ghraib the way the rest of official Washington did: from CBS Television last week. The administration has been well served in the past by its focus on secrecy, news management and avoiding leaks." So is it any wonder that the same media, being an arm of the Bush government enjoying more privileges than Congress, is also acting as Bush's personal campaign HQ?

Here's a story typical of the BushMedia manipulations aimed at undermining Kerry's strong popularity among Hispanic voters. This article, which is at best a slanted political commentary, purports to be a "news story" about Kerry by an LA Times "staff writer." But it starts right out with a thinly veiled PR pitch for the Bush campaign. This is followed by no fewer than THIRTY paragraphs of selectively negative quotes about Kerry. It is not until paragraph 37 that the "reporter" mentions that Kerry hasn't even formed his entire team yet and that "former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros, a national co-chairman of the campaign, is 'on the phone with John Kerry all the time.' ":Write the Times and tell them what you think of such media manipulation.http://www.latimes.com/services/site/la-comment-readersrep.story

Unable to stem the decline in Bush's popularity and the public's awakening to the realities of what this administration is all about (lying, manipulation, giving to the rich and taking from the poor), the rightwing is pandering the "polarized American voter" myth. But most Americans have now swung either to the center or further left. Thus Nader and Kerry between them are garnering from 52-60% of the vote. But the "polarized voter" myth is designed to make Kerry look like "an extreme liberal" rather than what he is: the voice of reason. American Enterprise Institute is the leading panderer of the myth (ex.: 5/3 Diane Rehm show)

This Moonie News (UPI) story was an attempt to spin off the story that broke last week about how badly reconstruction in Iraq is going. It correctly states the Bush admin. is inflating oil production figures and suppressing reports of attacks on pipelines (a propaganda technique often called a "truth hook"). However, it uses this fact to suggest that reduced production is what has derailed the reconstruction effort - not Bush's disastrous mismanagement. In the story Paul Wolfowitz is quoted: "Today Iraqi oil revenues go to the Development Fund for Iraq, where it helps to build new infrastructure and a new future for the Iraqi people." But on April 30, Reuters (a real news agency) reported that most oil revenues have gone to paying government salaries, not into reconstruction. US taxpayers have been footing the reconstruction bill all along! (see http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=bondsNews&storyID=5000965)

Since the late 1980s, the NeoCons have been waging an all-out push to move America toward the rightwing - the same wing where corporate interests rule and human interests are an afterthought. What is classic liberalism is called "extremism" by the NeoCons. They have been aided and abetted by the corporate media: FAIR says: "Every four years, loud voices in the media advise the Democratic presidential candidate to abandon progressive stances and occupy the political center [which, of course, is now three steps to the right of true center]. With Sen. John Kerry having emerged as the presumable nominee, the pundits are once again issuing the same prescription."

The pro-Bushie media has ramped up its outrageously deceitful pro-Bush spin in the past few weeks as the White House goes under a seige of its own making. Suddenly polls are being cranked out that show Bush ahead of Kerry, when anyone on the street can tell you that it just ain't so (disillusioned "former Bush supporters" are coming out of the woodwork!). Well, here's just one example of the tricks used by the pro-Bushie media moguls to inflate the figures: the manipulations used by FOX to make it appear that it has pulled way way ahead of CNN in "viewer polls" when, in fact, FOX has far FEWER viewers than CNN.