Get mentally, emotionally, spiritually prepared for what's coming...
Consider this chilling bit of dish is from US News and World Report:
Washington Whispers
From the White House, a nightmare scenario
White House officials say they've got a "working premise" about terrorism and the presidential election: It's going to happen. "We assume," says a top administration official, "an attack will happen leading up to the election." And, he added, "it will happen here." There are two worst-case scenarios, the official says. The first posits an attack on Washington, possibly the Capitol, which was believed to be the target of the 9/11 jet that crashed in Pennsylvania. Theory 2: smaller but more frequent attacks in Washington and other major cities leading up to the election. To prepare, the administration has been holding secret antiterrorism drills to make sure top officials know what to do. "There was a sense," says one official involved in the drills, "of mass confusion on 9/11. Now we have a sense of order." Unclear is the political impact, though most Bushies think the nation would rally around the president. "I can tell you one thing," adds the official sternly, "we won't be like Spain," which tossed its government days after the Madrid train bombings.
And, remember, millions of your fellow citizens will have their eyes and ears glued to FAUX News. Here is a brave, and inspiring OP-ED piece from a free man writing and getting published in a Red state...
Ron Formisano, Lexington (KENTUCKY) Herald-Leader: Ailes' greatest gift to Bush-Cheney was hiring John Ellis, President Bush's "I'm loyal to my cousin" cousin, to work its 2000 election desk. Ellis was already well-established among the rabid Gingrich wing of Clinton-Gore haters, and regarded President Bill Clinton as "loathsome," first lady Hillary Clinton as "immoral" and Vice President Al Gore as a practitioner of "stupid politics."
After the polls closed on election night in 2000 and uncertainty gradually took hold among the TV networks, Ellis was on the phone continually with his two cousins, candidate George Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. At 2:16 a.m., Fox, at Ellis' insistence, called the election for Cousin George. Within four minutes, NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC followed suit....
High percentages of folks who watched Fox News believed that a close link existed between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida (there was none), that most people in other countries backed the U.S. war in Iraq (huge majorities in Europe opposed it and still do, not to mention the Islamic world), and that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq (news flash: none to date). A whopping 80 percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these non-facts; 45 percent believed all three.
Want to see Sen. John Kerry trashed? Or get "news" spun to re-elect Bush-Cheney? Just surf on over to the Big Brother/Animal Farm network. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, respective authors of 1984 and Brave New World, novels that forecast a future of government by huge corporations and mind control, would have recognized Fox News as anticipation of their grim predictions.
Break the Bush Cabal Stranglehold on the "US Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/opinion/8673882.htm
Posted on Mon, May. 17, 2004
Fox News a slave to Murdoch's agenda
By Ron Formisano
The question is not whether but why Fox News is a right-wing propaganda machine, arm of the Republican Party and a vital part of the Bush-Cheney campaign.
The answer begins with ownership by the Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose empire includes 130 newspapers, TV Guide, 25 other magazines, HarperCollins and satellite companies spanning the globe.
Murdoch and most of his media outlets are somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan, except when it comes to China. When China shoots people to quiet dissension or holds Americans hostage, Fox ignores it because of Murdoch's desire to gain and maintain satellite access to a mega-market.
Murdoch's Republican allies give him tax breaks in return, and with most of his corporations registered offshore, the owner of the super-patriotic Fox pays an effective tax rate of 7.8 percent.
When Murdoch founded Fox News in 1996, he brought in Roger Ailes to run it. Ailes -- a right-wing Republican adviser to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and an architect of the 1988 Willie Horton campaign against Michael Dukakis -- purged all liberals from the network and loaded its political shows with conservative commentators (and one token mouse of a liberal), and former Republican congressmen, notably Newt Gingrich.
Ailes' greatest gift to Bush-Cheney was hiring John Ellis, President Bush's "I'm loyal to my cousin" cousin, to work its 2000 election desk. Ellis was already well-established among the rabid Gingrich wing of Clinton-Gore haters, and regarded President Bill Clinton as "loathsome," first lady Hillary Clinton as "immoral" and Vice President Al Gore as a practitioner of "stupid politics."
After the polls closed on election night in 2000 and uncertainty gradually took hold among the TV networks, Ellis was on the phone continually with his two cousins, candidate George Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. At 2:16 a.m., Fox, at Ellis' insistence, called the election for Cousin George. Within four minutes, NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC followed suit.
That call, labeled by one neutral observer as "wrong, unnecessary, misguided, foolish," created the sense of Bush's having rightfully won, which he did not, and was exploited to the hilt by a well-organized, raging machine of Bush partisans angrily attacking Florida recounts and demanding Gore's exit and Bush's "restoration."
Fox News' star bully is Bill O'Reilly, who pretends to be a tough, no-nonsense, "no spin" purveyor of fact and opinion. In fact, as Al Franken demonstrated in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, O'Reilly should be call "O'Liely."
Among other things, O'Reilly claimed he was a political independent when hired by Fox, but he was actually a registered Republican. He claimed to have grown up in a working-class district, but in fact he came from an affluent suburb and attended private schools.
Although O'Reilly looks like the kind of person who used to be a Democrat -- Irish surname, blunt-speaking champion of the average guy -- most of the time he promotes a Republican agenda and manipulates a phony populist shtick to champion the interests of the rich and powerful, above all his masters Ailes and Murdoch.
Some weeks ago, researchers from the Program on International Policy Attitudes, a consortium involving several universities and a polling firm published a report, to little media notice, showing that people who watch Fox News tended to be more misinformed than those who got their news elsewhere.
High percentages of folks who watched Fox News believed that a close link existed between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida (there was none), that most people in other countries backed the U.S. war in Iraq (huge majorities in Europe opposed it and still do, not to mention the Islamic world), and that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq (news flash: none to date). A whopping 80 percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these non-facts; 45 percent believed all three.
Want to see Sen. John Kerry trashed? Or get "news" spun to re-elect Bush-Cheney? Just surf on over to the Big Brother/Animal Farm network. George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, respective authors of 1984 and Brave New World, novels that forecast a future of government by huge corporations and mind control, would have recognized Fox News as anticipation of their grim predictions.
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Ron Formisano holds the William T. Bryan Chair of American History at the University of Kentucky. Reach him by e-mail at rform2@uky.edu.