Bill Maher Takes The P*ss Out Of Bill O'Reilly

Bill Maher comments on Bill O'Reilly and his comments.

War On Reality Part 54 ; Talking's The Politician's Substitute For Action

Much has been made in the past few days on President Bush's meeting on climate change.

He did say that he took climate change seriously. But nearly all of the countries he invited oppose his wish for voluntary cuts in emissions, as they all believe mandatory cuts are the best option. With fifteen months left, many people are looking to the next government to achieve real traction on global warming and minimising it's effect.

Tell The Truthiness ; Bush said he took Osama Bin Laden seriously, well, we all know how that turned out.

War On Reality Part 53 ; Selling War As A Product, Every Season

Here's a trailer for a film now showing, that gives an interesting insight to how war has been sold to the US public for the past 50 years.

Tell The Truthiness ; Fear is the ultimate selling tool, it's that simple.

Road To Tehran 1 ; Joint Chiefs Dust Off Plans

Today we launch another thread to our coverage ; 'Road To Tehran'. Although there has been discussion of a war in Iran as not possible in the current climate, we all know how spin and repetition of an idea can change people's minds.

The Vice President has asked the Joint Chiefs to redraw plans for an attack on Iran. An initial attack would be by bombing of nuclear sites, military and infrastructure.

Tell The Truthiness ; If this is the next step in Bush's and Cheney's plan, how far will it be allowed to go and who will ultimately stop it?

War On Reality Part 52 ; Lazy Couric - Iraq Assessment 'Not My Job'

The above is a simple edited version of Katie Couric's reports out of Iraq from the beginning of the month.

Couric has stirred the pot further following the controversial reporting she made on a trip to Iraq where she simply repeated White House talking points. She tried to defend herself in an interview at the National Press Club, broadcast on CSPAN-2.

We don't have a youtube video of that interview, but click here to watch.

Tell The Truthiness ; You can't defend yourself for not having a ''Walter Cronkite'' moment by then just repeating what you've been told by US military and administration officials. That is just lazy and sloppy journalism.

War On Reality Part 51 ; Cheney Catches Gonzales-itis

A speech made by Vice President Dick Cheney has, like a stone, made it's way to the surface and shows how Mr Cheney defended not going after Saddam and 'finishing the job' after the Gulf War.

Tell The Truthiness ; What changed Mr Cheney? What altered your thinking from such (we can't believe this is about to be typed) a reasonable standpoint to get to the polar opposite within ten years? You cannot cite 9/11 as there wasn't, isn't and will never be a connection between them. Unless you just lie and insist there is. But you've already tried that.

So what caused that change? Who changed your mind?

Bill O'Reilly Does It Again, Shows Us Why He's On Fox

Bill O'Reilly, black people, controversial comments, you can join the dots yourself, or click for it here.

Plus though, here's a colourful chart quantifying his comments on 'black', 'African' and 'African-American'.

Tell The Truthiness ; If anyone's in a Harlem restaurant, which has mostly black patrons and still listens or watches him, do email us and tell us why.

Senator Craig Isn't Gay And He Doesn't Want To Help Them

Senator Larry Craig has just voted on a Hate Crimes Bill in the Senate which is to expand protection for victims of hate crimes based on their sexual orientation.

He voted against the bill.

Tell The Truthiness ; Remember, he's not gay! And that's ok!

President's Phonetics Released ; Mugabe - mooGAHbee , Bush - ENGLISH LESSONS

In another example of why the US President is dangerous not only to his country, the World, but also the English language, a copy of his speech was released today.

The draft of his speech to the United Nations General Assembly includes notes on phonetics for World leaders and country names, Mauritannia - moor-EH-tain-ee-a, that he will cover during the talk.

Tell The Truthiness ; Bush = SS-care-EE.

John Grisham Voices Thoughts On Bush Government ; "Bad People"

John Grisham, author of countless books on crime, lawyers and things of that sort, has made his feelings about the current government very clear.

During promotion for a new book, which we won't name here, he said the administration is built around "bad people with evil intent".

He also added we would be paying for this war in decades to come.

Tell The Truthiness ; He did back John Kerry back in 2004, so if we can get him to turn round and throw his support towards whoever the GOP candidate becomes...who knows! That's a spooky enough plot for a book, hope John's reading this.

Holding Them To Account 10 ; Gonzales 'Al Be Going'

Alberto Gonzales left on Friday and was given a full send off by his office. And Jon from The Daily Show...



Tell The Truthiness ; Some staff didn't get him a leaving card, they just "did not recall" he was leaving.

President Bush Says Nelson Mandela's Dead ; Mandela Most Surprised

The common sense which may have lingered in that last, deep, dark recess of President Bush's brain has finally left it's owner and gone squinting out into the light.

He made a reference to fighters in Iraq and said, well, this...



Tell The Truthiness ; There was a statue of Mandela unveiled a few weeks ago, he was there to pull off the cover. He was the man in the bright shirt Mr Bush.

Special Comment : Bush's Hypocrisy Is So Vast

Here is Keith Olbermann's Special Comment last night about President Bush's press conference response to the Petraeus adverisement.

Dan Rather Has Courage ; Sues CBS For $70 Million

After Dan Rather's hurried and unexpected dismissal 15 months ago from the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News, there's been some comments and sniping from both sides.

Today that was ratcheted up a notch as the ex-anchor filed a lawsuit against CBS for $70 million damages.

He cites them allowing a biased and incomplete investigation into the George W Bush National Guard report.

All this comes at a bad time for CBS as discussion of it's Evening News broadcast's further sinking ratings seems never ending.

Tell The Truthiness ; It would be interesting to find out what the objective of ousting Dan Rather was, what was actually achieved by it in the broadcasting and politcal Worlds and who's agenda it was.

War On Reality Part 50 ; Tasered Student Shows How Free Speech Becomes Optional Extra

As millions watch the video of Andrew Meyer being tasered during a question and answer session with Senator John Kerry, people have said less about the limits on free speech than the voyeuristic aspects of the tape.

Yes, his capture and restraining plays well for a viral video, but the bigger picture is that he was held and taken away for asking questions.

Tell The Truthiness ; Last time anyone checked, Tim Russert or Martha Raddatz didn't get that type of treatment for asking questions, why should it be different for anyone else?

PS John Kerry said as he was being tackled he would answer his questions, but he never answered as everyone's attention was distracted.

War On Reality Part 49 ; Baghdad Is Safe, But Stay Inside The Resort

Yesterday, travel by anyone who's not military personnel outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad was suspended following the alleged killing of Iraqi citizens by US security firm Blackwater.

Blackwater is a private security firm employed in Baghdad by the US Embassy to protect employees. Two other companies carry out similar duties.

The amount of employees of Blackwater and the other firms is huge, representing massive contracts and millions of dollars to earn.

Tell The Truthiness ; This war, among other things, was all about the money.

PS - If you're anti-war and happen to live in Baghdad, make sure if you do get fatally shot it hits you in the back of the head, because then that will count in the casualty figures.

Saunter To The White House 2 ; If We Ignore Black People, Like The Iraqis, They'll Kill Each Other Eventually

With the 2008 US General Election looking several Worlds away from that of the ballot of 2000, some things just don't seem to have changed.

Despite the running of Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, which people said just wouldn't and couldn't happen a few years ago, the actions of the GOP in this election run-up could harm relations between ethnic groups more than anyone realises.

The offer for the main Republican hopefuls to speak at a PBS sponsored GOP forum at Morgan State University Maryland, has been shoved aside.

Fred Thompson, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have snubbed the debate. The city of Baltimore, where Morgan State is located is a mostly black city.

Tell The Truthiness ; Old, white men don't like to mix with black folk? Doesn't this sound like a bad modern remake of 'In The Heat Of The Night'? GOP, grow up and wake up.

War On Reality Part 48 ; Mr Craig Returns To Washington

Senator Larry Craig returned, unannounced, to the Capitol today.

When questioned as to whether he would be resigning, after last month's arrest by police for soliciting sex in an airport bathroom, he said no.

Perhaps he's forgotten that in the immediate furore last month he said he would resign, then backtracked.

Tell The Truthiness ; Does this guy even remember which state he represents? Idaho for the record.

Mexico Is Country 81 To Think Bush Is A Big *%&@

Former Mexican President, Vicente Fox has said in an autobiography how he thought Mr Bush to be the "cockiest guy I have ever met in my life".

Tell The Truthiness ; We think this every day.

PS - Mr Fox also added he never imagined George W Bush would ever get elected. All we can say is "the horror, the horror, we should wake up soon."

Well, we'll all wake up in January 2009.

Fox Censors 'Anything' Offensive ; Religion, War, Storylines, Truth, Freedom Of Acceptance Speeches

Sally Field's speech after winning an Emmy last night was cut off by Fox.

Fox defend themselves by saying they cut her off after the word 'god', which she followed with a 'damn', which they deem could offend some viewers.

They didn't restore the sound feed though after 'damn', they kept it quiet until she'd finished her sentence.

That sentence included an overall anti-war theme to the speech about mothers and children being brought home.

Tell The Truthiness ; As Fox says, it bleeped out anything that they deem could offend, didn't they miss all the sex and violence that they pass as 'news' on their Faux News channel?

Greenspan ; Iraq War All About Oil...Oops, What Should I Have Said?

The former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, has backtracked on his comments published in his memoir about Iraq, the war and it's oil supplies.

The quote in the book says " the Iraq War is largely about oil".

Today though, watering down his comments, in an interview, Greenspan has corrected himself by claiming he told the White House that removing Saddam was "essential" to secure World and US oil interests in the region.

As you'd expect, everyone in the US administration who has responded to the book and the round of press interviews given by Greenspan says the ex-Fed boss is very nice but wrong. Fancy that!

Tell The Truthiness ; Why then was the Iraqi Oil Ministry the only protected building during the looting, post-invasion in Baghdad?

War On Reality Part 47 ; Have The Republicans Bought The Rerun Rights To 9/11?

If they could, especially some of those running for GOP presidential candidate, rerun and burn the image into people's minds once every day, like making sure you have a daily dose of vitamin c, of 9/11, Bush and his team would do it.

So as Stephen Colbert says here, they could save themselves the hassle of being creative and just rerun the footage from 2001.

Tell The Truthiness ; At least Laura knows to buy George the highlights DVD as an ideal Christmas present.

War On Reality Part 46 ; UK Troops Head Home, Via Tehran

A proxy war seems about to take place on the border of Iraq and Iran, as UK troops have been moved to that area, at the request of the Americans.

350 members of the UK armed forces have been moved from Basra (we guess from the duty free shop at the airport, since that's where they were moved to just a little while ago), after the US warned that Iran was backing conflict by factions over the border in Iraq.

This story has been receiving limited coverage in the UK, mostly in The Independent newspaper.

Tell The Troops The Truthiness ; If the Americans told UK forces to jump off a cliff, would they do it?

War On Reality Part 45 ; The Secret To Lying In Politics? Timing

Many people cannot help not just being suspicious of the content of the Petraeus report, which was of course influenced and probably written by Bush's team, but also about the timing of it's release.

Just like the Republican National Convention which took place in Manhatten a year after 9/11, tapping into fears about national security, releasing this report a day before the sixth anniversary of the attacks, combined with the 'latest' video, allegedly of Osama Bin Laden is done to scare people. It's no more complicated than that. It's designed and planned to scare people about national security, worse though, it tries to reinforce the lie that 9/11 is linked to Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Tell The Truthiness ; Its sad that not only does Bush and his team continue to string-out this myth, spreading it thinner, but also that the public and press do not speak up loudly enough when it's presented to them.

War On Reality Part 44 ; Petraeus Media Response

Here's an example of the excellent coverage provided of the recent events in the news. God bless and honor Stephen Colbert.

War On Reality Part 43 ; White House Mouthpiece Petraeus

The weight of the White House must be pressing heavily on General David Petraeus this evening as his report is shot to pieces by, it seems, everyone.

Americans, Senators, Congressmen, Democrat and Republican are latching onto that opening phrase given by the General yesterday about no-one in the White House having seen or influenced the report.

As obvious as the sun crossing the sky, if he gave a true, damning indictment of the situation in Iraq, his military career would be cut short, by Mr Bush and Mr Cheney. Of that there is no doubt.

Tell The Truthiness ; If anything is needed in Iraq, it's a 'diplomatic surge' as urged by Democrats and Republicans.

War On Reality Part 42 ; We Still Have To Stay, Not Sure For How Long

Petraeus and Crocker are able to tell us a lot about Iraq. Like, according to them, the surge has begun to work, but we need to stay there longer to make sure it stays that way.

Despite this urgent need, he did say forces can begin coming back down to pre-surge levels, giving detailed numbers about this.

They were able to tell us about casualty rates, rolling averages, percentage changes, etc. All the numbers games you can ever hope to play.

However they cannot give us timetables, dates or gurantees about when any change in this false and needless war can happen.

Tell The Truthiness ; How can you be so certain about our need to remain in the country, because you say things are getting better, yet not be able to know when forces can leave?

War On Reality Part 41.1 ; Anyone Got A Spare Microphone For Petraeus?

General Petraeus has yet to speak as his microphone won't work.

Tell The Truthiness ; Just get Dick Cheney to unscrew a couple of phones, there's plenty of microphones in them!

War On Reality Part 41 ; Think The Truth, But Stick To The Script Petraeus

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker sit in Congress about to deliver a report, goodness knows who actually wrote it and who's tweaked the language to get more time bought for this gravy train of a war.

What we've noticed, apart from the broadside by one member of the panel, is how terrified Petraeus and Crocker look.

Tell The Truthiness ; Like Bush, they both look like they've been caught in the headlights, has this war finally been caught in the same place?

Saunter To The White House 1 ; For Obama, It's Sofa-So Good

Today Truthiness launches a new coverage segment called ' Saunter To The White House'. As we all know, the election isn't until November next year, so since there is so little to stretch so thinly, we've called it saunter, as anyone who plans to run the whole way will drop dead before Halloween.

So kicking things off is Barack Obama's, Oprah Winfrey backed fundraiser this weekend. Winfrey invited 1500 guests to raise an expected $3 million for the Presidential candidate.

Tell The Truthiness ; Could this just be the sort of high-profile backing that Obama needs to keep pace with Hillary Clinton?

PS Do we all get a free car now?

Then There Were 5000 ; 250 Head Home Soon

250 soldiers are heading back home early from Basra in the latest phase of withdrawal for UK forces.

A total of 500 are due to return under the overall plan to handover Basra Palace.

Tell The Truthiness ; If those 250 of the full 500 are brought home even earlier again, we'll let you know.

Troops Show Their True Feelings In Basra Pullout

It seems that those UK troops leaving Basra couldn't keep their real feelings quiet, as this picture shows.

Tell The Truthiness ; Some details coming in about more UK troops leaving, we'll post when we get the details.

War On Reality Part 40 ; Bin Laden Reserves Complimentary Seat At Next GOP Debate With Tape Donation

The 'latest' tape from the Big Bad Bin Laden has been released, timed to help politically the Republican party and Mr Bush.

All tapes of Bin Laden have been released at times which strategically have potential to give the GOP a boost by, well scaring people and discrediting any hint of an alternative to the official 9/11 story.

Tape is released, tape is played on TV for 24 hours, President or Secretary Of Defence or Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs makes appearance on TV saying how we must not let these terrorists win and to keep spreading liberty throughout the World.

And the result? Anyone who was waivering to vote for another party at the next general/midterm election decides to stick with the Republicans.

The US company IntelCenter, which gained this tape, has been caught out doctoring tape of Mr Big before and of presenting other tapes in totally the wrong context.

Tell The Truthiness ; Indeed, the Bin Laden in this tape looks nothing like the earlier ones, there are so many holes in the official story of him being reponsible for the attacks that it makes Swiss Cheese look watertight. Plus, don't the Republicans and the Bush Cohorts know that tapes like these have diminishing returns?

War On Reality Part 39 ; Is The Truth About 9/11 Breaking Cover?

The wikipedia entry for Flight 11 and Flight 77, which we are told crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon respectively nearly six years ago, has been altered.

The alteration says that although those flights took off before and after that day, on September 11th they were both NOT scheduled to fly.

Corroborating this fact are details of flights which are kept at the Bureau Of Transportation Statistics.

Click here and look for yourself.

But now it gets very interesting, the alteration, which anyone can make on Wikipedia, has been traced back to a computer with an American Airlines IP address.

Tell The Truthiness ; Why is someone at American Airlines changing the details of what happened on that day? We've not been told the whole story, can someone from AA and BTS explain the most basic 'facts' and why they need alteration? What's being hidden, now is the time for questions, not ridicule.

War On Reality Part 38.5 ; This Lazy & Conning President

Here is the YouTube video, sorry for the delay.

War On Reality Part 38 ; This Lazy & Conning President

The Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC shown last night can be found here. Later we'll post a video directly onto this main page, once someone more technically minded than us posts it on YouTube.

Tell The Truthiness ; Now we have it in black and white, Bush has no desire to bring troops back before he tries to load this war onto the Republican candidate in this month or in October. This man needs to go, now.

War On Reality Part 37 ; What Might Have Been

With UK troop withdrawals having begun on Monday and the President speculating doing the same thing, you have to ask the question.

What would Iraq be like if straight after the end of the invasion in 2003, forces had withdrawn to a nominal peacekeeping force and the Iraqi army hadn't been disbanded?

Tell The Truthiness ; The US tried to prevent majority Shias getting control over the country, like the makeup in nearby Iran, but with Iraq being around 60% Shia, didn't they know the outcome before the invasion?

War On Reality Part 36 ; Is He Thinking About Thinking What We're Thinking?

It feels like President Bush has just two places he travels to these days, one is New Orleans, the other is Baghdad.

He stopped at Al-Asad airbase in the Anbar area of Iraq, on his way to Australia and following an eight hour meeting with army officials he said he might say something we've all been hoping for, sometime in the future.

If security improves (he's been told it has) at the rate it has, he may be considering bringing troops home.

Tell The Truthiness ; We'd love to know how the British Basra pullout yesterday influenced this statement? Is it like dominos, one goes, the rest follow straight after?

War On Reality Part 35 ; UK Basra Exit 'Not A Defeat', What The F*@k Is It Then?

Yesterday's British withdrawal of troops from Basra Palace to a base at the airport has been defended as "not a defeat" by most of the UK government and anyone who's been asked from the Ministry Of Defence.

But for many, the very action of removing these troops shows that the pull-out of the vast majority of UK forces is in "all but word" a defeat.

A former Foreign Office offical said there has been no coalition control over Southern Iraq for two and a half years.

Tell The Truthiness ; Mr Bush, are your shoulders slightly colder now that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is standing some distance away?

More Links, To More Places, More Often

May we recommend this site Either Relevant Or True : Blogging Keith Olbermann .

Keith Olbermann Special Comment Tonight On MSNBC

For those of our visitors who live in North America, or anywhere else that can receive the MSNBC channel, there's going to be a Special Comment on Countdown With Keith Olbermann on MSNBC tonight at 8pm Eastern Daylight Time.

Some may say we are not presenting a balanced view of news by posting video's of Mr Olbermann's Special Comments. But we are not a real news site, we do not claim to be a national news source, most of which are nowhere near as 'fair and balanced' as they claim. As a result these videos and the opinion of this site sets out to redress that balance which has swung since 2001 and 9/11 hugely in favour of Mr Bush's administration and does not hold them to account.

Those of you who have never seen one of these Special Comments, here's his best:



Tell The Truthiness ; We'll post part of the transcript up later, when it becomes available on MSNBC's News Hole website.

Holding Them To Account 9 ; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld - You Are Intellectually Bankrupt

General Sir Mike Jackson called the US post-war policy "intellectually bankrupt" in a UK newspaper interview on Saturday. Mr Jackson is the head of the British Army.

He added that US policy in terms of strategy was "short-sighted". The real bombshell was him talking about former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was "one of the most responsible for the current situation".

Tell The Truthiness ; He also said disbanding of the Iraqi Army was a mistake. We were waiting for him to say that they should have just kept Saddam. At least now the naked truth is coming out, at last.

It Might Be Free On-Air Promotion, But Its Funny

Stephen Colbert and Richard Branson give good value for money on this faux-fight interview.

Tell The Truthiness ; When will The Colbert Report go onto TV global, like it's creator, The Daily Show?

Flying While Iraqi ; The Sad Truth Of The State Of The States

Three men onboard an American Airlines flight from San Diego to Chicago were viewed with suspicion by fellow passengers as they began to speak Arabic. So much so that a mother caused the plane to return to the gate and be let off.

By this time it was too late to takeoff due to the aiport's night flight curfew. The flight was rescheduled for the morning.

Tell The Truthiness ; A UK European MP who has been viewed with suspicion while travelling, who is Asian in appearance has dubbed this 'travelling whilst Asian', perhaps since the men on this flight were Iraq citizens travelling to train soldiers at a US Army camp, the phrase, 'travelling whilst Iraqi' should be coined?

Does everyone who boards an aircraft as a passenger leave all common sense on the ground?

Senator Larry Craig Resignation

After being treated like a leper by the GOP, Senator Larry Craig resigned this lunchtime.

Tell The Truthiness ; He didn't help himself by pleading guilty to start with when he has since admitted that he didn't do anything wrong. So why do it?

Senator Larry Craig's Police Squad Tape

As it says above, here's a recording of Senator Larry Craig's police interview.

Tell The Truthiness ; Can we get the Senator to appear on Ellen in a couple of weeks, it'd be fun to see him dance.

Holding Them To Account 8 ; Senator Craig Sidesteps His Wide Stance

So, as expected, the Republicans demonstrated their infantile treatment of an unfortunate situation and made sure Senator Larry Criag resign today. That action is due at 12.30pm Eastern Time.

Tell The Truthiness ; Other parties in the US and around the World are able to understand those members who are or may be gay, why do the Republicans make their attitude towards these situations so uncaring?