Dubya Deflects Tough Questions Expertly

[blueturk]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601401.html

Bush Uses Humor to Deflect the Heat

By NEDRA PICKLER
The Associated Press
Thursday, January 26, 2006; 4:15 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's first news conference of the year was just a camera strap away from becoming hazardous to reporters.

As the president began his opening statement, a camera that the news service AFP had hung from the ceiling dropped and nearly fell on the heads below. It was caught by its strap, and Bush stopped and looked at it dangling precariously.

Bush was full of quips during the 45-minute news conference, poking fun at the media and deflecting some of the heat when questioning got intense.

Yes, Bush acknowledged, he had his picture taken with admitted criminal Jack Abramoff.

"Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with him or know him very well," he said. "I've had my picture taken with you at holiday parties."

Another reporter pointed out that allegations of Abramoff's influence went beyond the photographs to questions of why he met with the president's top aides. The White House has refused to disclose just how often or why Abramoff was there, and Bush wasn't about to, either. He returned to jokes about the pictures.

"I mean, people, it's part of the job of the president to shake hands with people and smile," he said. He said he'd turn over records about Abramoff's meetings at the White House only to federal prosecutors if they suspected something inappropriate.

When a radio reporter asked the president again to never mind the photographs, just talk about lobbyists' influence on the White House, Bush interrupted: "Easy for a radio guy to say."

[thome]

Originally posted by blueturk
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601401.html

Bush Uses Humor to Deflect the Heat

By NEDRA PICKLER
The Associated Press
Thursday, January 26, 2006; 4:15 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's first news conference of the year was just a camera strap away from becoming hazardous to reporters.

As the president began his opening statement, a camera that the news service AFP had hung from the ceiling dropped and nearly fell on the heads below. It was caught by its strap, and Bush stopped and looked at it dangling precariously.

Bush was full of quips during the 45-minute news conference, poking fun at the media and deflecting some of the heat when questioning got intense.

Yes, Bush acknowledged, he had his picture taken with admitted criminal Jack Abramoff.

"Having my picture taken with someone doesn't mean that I'm a friend with him or know him very well," he said. "I've had my picture taken with you at holiday parties."

Another reporter pointed out that allegations of Abramoff's influence went beyond the photographs to questions of why he met with the president's top aides. The White House has refused to disclose just how often or why Abramoff was there, and Bush wasn't about to, either. He returned to jokes about the pictures.

"I mean, people, it's part of the job of the president to shake hands with people and smile," he said. He said he'd turn over records about Abramoff's meetings at the White House only to federal prosecutors if they suspected something inappropriate.

When a radio reporter asked the president again to never mind the photographs, just talk about lobbyists' influence on the White House, Bush interrupted: "Easy for a radio guy to say."

Talk about saying nothin reread that WTF.. Is this where you get your non-information..?

[Hardrock69]

This is what politicians are trained to do.

Stand at a podium and talk for 45 fucking minutes without saying a goddamn thing.

:rolleyes:

[blueturk]

Originally posted by thome
Talk about saying nothin reread that WTF.. Is this where you get your non-information..?

As if you're not bleating enough already in your thread on this same subject....

[skoolsout]

' The White House has refused to disclose just how often or why Abramoff was there, and Bush wasn't about to, either. He returned to jokes about the pictures'

to get inside the white house you have to go through all kinds of security checks and there is a lot of paperwork involved(evidence)...I think gw knows this JAck a little better than he's letting on....

[Cathedral]

If the tables were turned you'd be getting the same thing from a Democrat administration.
(See Clinton and his finger pointing speech as he lied to the grand jury and the people)

Anyone who thinks otherwise is at risk of being labeled an idiot, and rightfully so.

Every damn one of them needs a wake up call as to who they actually work for.

At this point we might even be better off clearing the slate and starting over. fixing the corruption wouldn't be possible any other way.

[Hardrock69]

There is a seriously complex web linking Abramoff, a Florida Bank that went under, Netenyahu, massive amounts of money, and the Palestinian "state", and DICKLESS Cheney.

If this stuff ever made it to the mainstream media and into the public domain, Cheney would be crucified.

[Cathedral]

If it's true, it needs to be exposed, period.

Crooks belong in jail.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Cathedral
If the tables were turned you'd be getting the same thing from a Democrat administration.
(See Clinton and his finger pointing speech as he lied to the grand jury and the people)

Anyone who thinks otherwise is at risk of being labeled an idiot, and rightfully so.

Every damn one of them needs a wake up call as to who they actually work for.

At this point we might even be better off clearing the slate and starting over. fixing the corruption wouldn't be possible any other way.

It's not the same thing CAT. When BUSH is investigated by an independent council over every accusation with legal, binding authority, then we can compare it to Pres. CLINTON's tenure...

[Hardrock69]

Originally posted by Cathedral
If it's true, it needs to be exposed, period.

Crooks belong in jail.


This article appears in the January 20, 2006 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

An ever-more-desperate Dick Cheney is pulling out all the stops to install "Clean Break" hawk Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu as the next Israeli Prime Minister, to push for an immediate confrontation between Israel and Syria. Israeli sources report that Cheney, as of Jan. 11, had an emissary in Israel, exploring the means to put "Bibi" and the Likud back in power, despite collapsing Israeli popular support for the extreme rightwing policies of the neo-con faction that Netanyahu represents.

Part of Cheney's growing desperation stems from the fact that the recent plea agreement between U.S. Justice Department prosecutors and super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, threatens to bring down the entire political dirty-money empire of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), which has been Cheney's principal power base since coming in as Vice President and de facto head-of-state in January 2001. Cheney and DeLay were shown by a recent EIR exclusive story to be politically "joined at the hip" (see EIR, Dec. 30, 2005). The Vice President is so deeply implicated in the DeLay/Abramoff dirty-money machine that the legal defense funds of DeLay and Cheney's ex-chief of staff Lewis Libby are headed by the same two Republican lobbyists, Wayne Berman and former Congressman Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.).

But Israeli sources report, and Washington insiders confirm, that Netanyahu himself is so closely tied to Jack Abramoff that the fallout from Abramoff's plea may bring him down as well, as the international web of money-laundering fronts, tax-exempt charities, and no-bid contractors put together by Abramoff unravels under U.S. prosecutors' scrutiny.

West Bank Story

The first published clue about the Netanyahu/Abramoff links actually surfaced last year, when Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff revealed on May 2, 2005 that one of Abramoff's tax-exempt charities, Capital Athletic Foundation, had funnelled $140,000 to a West Bank settlement, to finance the purchasing of security equipment, including "camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager, and other material."

Funds for the Capital Athletic Foundation, ostensibly an Abramoff family charity dedicated to helping inner-city youth, came largely from Indian tribe clients of Abramoff.

The security gear was provided to the West Bank town of Beitar Illit, which Isikoff described as "a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors."

Beitar Illit is the home of Schmuel Ben-Zvi, a rightwing American who moved to the West Bank, and who was a close high school pal of Abramoff in Hollywood. The $140,000 was paid to an Israeli group called Kollel Ohel Tiferet, which is not publicly registered in Israel.

While Ben-Zvi denied any links to the $140,000 West Bank payoff, an exchange of emails between him and Abramoff told a different story. On receiving the money, Ben-Zvi wrote to Abramoff: "I feel like the tank commanders in the Yom Kippur war, who when hearing over the radio that reinforcements were coming, felt so great that they raised their seats higher out of the tank hatch and went forward." To which Abramoff wrote back: "If only there were another dozen of you the dirty rats would be finished," referring to the Palestinian neighbors of Beitar Illit.

When questions arose over what Israeli entity to pass the money to, Ben-Zvi proposed to write a letter to the Capital Athletic Foundation, on the letterhead of his Snipers Workshop, which he described as "an educational entity of sorts."

Informed of the West Bank funding, Indian tribal lawyer Henry Buffalo told Newsweek, "This is almost like outer-limits bizarre. The tribe would never have given money for this."

FBI sources told Newsweek's Isikoff that the bulk of the $4 million listed as the Abramoff fund's tax-exempt gifts went to a now-defunct Maryland yeshiva where Abramoff's two sons went to school.

Wiring Congress

Another contributor to the Capital Athletic Foundation was an Israeli telecom startup company, Foxcom, which kicked in $50,000 to the Abramoff fund. Foxcom received a $3-million contract to install wireless antenna systems at the U.S. Congress, in a deal pushed through by Abramoff crony Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Administration Committee. The Washington Post revealed on Oct. 18, 2005 that Foxcom had paid Abramoff $280,000 in lobbying fees around the time they got the Congressional contract. An American company, LGC Wireless, which had lost the bid to Foxcom, went to the FBI and charged that the bidding process had been rigged by Ney.

Newsweek reported on Aug. 22, 2005 that U.S. officials had rushed to indict and arrest Abramoff on Aug. 11, because they feared he would flee to Israel, as two of his business partners had already done.

And still to be unravelled are the Abramoff connections to the Russian oil company Naftasib, which laundered $1 million to another Abramoff "charity," the U.S. Family Network, through a London law firm, James and Sarch, in 1998. Two top Naftasib executives, Marina Nevskaya and Alexander Koulakovsky, spent "quality time" with Tom DeLay in Moscow, shortly before the laundered payoff to Abramoff. The Russian "oil company" lists the Russian Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior as Naftasib's two main clients. Some of the military equipment delivered to the West Bank settlement of Ben-Zvi came from Russia, hinting at Russian Mafiya ties in the background of the Abramoff saga.

Senior Washington sources have cautioned that it would be a mistake to presume that the Abramoff money flow to Israel and Russia primarily went out of the United States. Abramoff's takeover of the gambling cruise ship line SunCruz gave him a perfect instrument for laundering millions of dollars a day through the offshore gambling tables.

Syria War Diversion

The Cheney push to install Netanyahu as Israel's next Prime Minister, replacing the now-incapacitated Ariel Sharon, is, according to Israeli sources, part of Cheney's desperate move to "change the subject" from his growing political problems in Washington.

Netanyahu is pledged, according to the Israeli sources, to a war with Syria, to divert attention, and to move ahead with the decade-old "Clean Break" scheme, drafted for Netanyahu in July 1996 by a group of American neo-con allies of Cheney. The "Clean Break" strategy paper was co-authored by Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, and others, and called for the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, followed by similar "regime changes" in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. David Wurmser, the single most vociferous advocate of "regime change" in Damascus, is now a senior Middle East policy aide to Cheney. He previously served under Doug Feith at the Pentagon, when Feith was Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the first Bush-Cheney Administration.

Cheney's war scheme against Syria also implicates Abramoff, according to a Jan. 11, 2006 story by Justin Raimondi, posted on antiwar.com. "One investigator, eager to obtain information about the neo-con-sponsored Reform Party of Syria, led by one Farid Ghadry, the Syrian version of Ahmed Chalabi" Raimondi wrote, "stumbled on the Abramoff connection: 'When repeated calls to [Ghadry's] organization went unanswered, I visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the RPS. Reform Party of Syria is in the office of super-Zionist lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Middle Gate Ventures, Abramoff's political advisory company, partners with RPS."

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
It's not the same thing CAT. When BUSH is investigated by an independent council over every accusation with legal, binding authority, then we can compare it to Pres. CLINTON's tenure...

I see your point, but mine was that he lied and somehow i get the impression that people think the Democratic Party has never done that.
I wasn't trying to compare them, just point out that Bush isn't the only liar to ever hold that office.

And yes, I firmly believe Bush is a bold faced liar, especially about his faith.
His behind the scenes antics contradict his claims of being born again and led by God.
So in my opinion, he's anything but chosen by God to be President.

I don't trust him, and that is non-negotiable.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Hardrock69
This article appears in the January 20, 2006 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

An ever-more-desperate Dick Cheney is pulling out all the stops to install "Clean Break" hawk Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu as the next Israeli Prime Minister, to push for an immediate confrontation between Israel and Syria. Israeli sources report that Cheney, as of Jan. 11, had an emissary in Israel, exploring the means to put "Bibi" and the Likud back in power, despite collapsing Israeli popular support for the extreme rightwing policies of the neo-con faction that Netanyahu represents.

Part of Cheney's growing desperation stems from the fact that the recent plea agreement between U.S. Justice Department prosecutors and super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, threatens to bring down the entire political dirty-money empire of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), which has been Cheney's principal power base since coming in as Vice President and de facto head-of-state in January 2001. Cheney and DeLay were shown by a recent EIR exclusive story to be politically "joined at the hip" (see EIR, Dec. 30, 2005). The Vice President is so deeply implicated in the DeLay/Abramoff dirty-money machine that the legal defense funds of DeLay and Cheney's ex-chief of staff Lewis Libby are headed by the same two Republican lobbyists, Wayne Berman and former Congressman Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.).

But Israeli sources report, and Washington insiders confirm, that Netanyahu himself is so closely tied to Jack Abramoff that the fallout from Abramoff's plea may bring him down as well, as the international web of money-laundering fronts, tax-exempt charities, and no-bid contractors put together by Abramoff unravels under U.S. prosecutors' scrutiny.

West Bank Story

The first published clue about the Netanyahu/Abramoff links actually surfaced last year, when Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff revealed on May 2, 2005 that one of Abramoff's tax-exempt charities, Capital Athletic Foundation, had funnelled $140,000 to a West Bank settlement, to finance the purchasing of security equipment, including "camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager, and other material."

Funds for the Capital Athletic Foundation, ostensibly an Abramoff family charity dedicated to helping inner-city youth, came largely from Indian tribe clients of Abramoff.

The security gear was provided to the West Bank town of Beitar Illit, which Isikoff described as "a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors."

Beitar Illit is the home of Schmuel Ben-Zvi, a rightwing American who moved to the West Bank, and who was a close high school pal of Abramoff in Hollywood. The $140,000 was paid to an Israeli group called Kollel Ohel Tiferet, which is not publicly registered in Israel.

While Ben-Zvi denied any links to the $140,000 West Bank payoff, an exchange of emails between him and Abramoff told a different story. On receiving the money, Ben-Zvi wrote to Abramoff: "I feel like the tank commanders in the Yom Kippur war, who when hearing over the radio that reinforcements were coming, felt so great that they raised their seats higher out of the tank hatch and went forward." To which Abramoff wrote back: "If only there were another dozen of you the dirty rats would be finished," referring to the Palestinian neighbors of Beitar Illit.

When questions arose over what Israeli entity to pass the money to, Ben-Zvi proposed to write a letter to the Capital Athletic Foundation, on the letterhead of his Snipers Workshop, which he described as "an educational entity of sorts."

Informed of the West Bank funding, Indian tribal lawyer Henry Buffalo told Newsweek, "This is almost like outer-limits bizarre. The tribe would never have given money for this."

FBI sources told Newsweek's Isikoff that the bulk of the $4 million listed as the Abramoff fund's tax-exempt gifts went to a now-defunct Maryland yeshiva where Abramoff's two sons went to school.

Wiring Congress

Another contributor to the Capital Athletic Foundation was an Israeli telecom startup company, Foxcom, which kicked in $50,000 to the Abramoff fund. Foxcom received a $3-million contract to install wireless antenna systems at the U.S. Congress, in a deal pushed through by Abramoff crony Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Administration Committee. The Washington Post revealed on Oct. 18, 2005 that Foxcom had paid Abramoff $280,000 in lobbying fees around the time they got the Congressional contract. An American company, LGC Wireless, which had lost the bid to Foxcom, went to the FBI and charged that the bidding process had been rigged by Ney.

Newsweek reported on Aug. 22, 2005 that U.S. officials had rushed to indict and arrest Abramoff on Aug. 11, because they feared he would flee to Israel, as two of his business partners had already done.

And still to be unravelled are the Abramoff connections to the Russian oil company Naftasib, which laundered $1 million to another Abramoff "charity," the U.S. Family Network, through a London law firm, James and Sarch, in 1998. Two top Naftasib executives, Marina Nevskaya and Alexander Koulakovsky, spent "quality time" with Tom DeLay in Moscow, shortly before the laundered payoff to Abramoff. The Russian "oil company" lists the Russian Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior as Naftasib's two main clients. Some of the military equipment delivered to the West Bank settlement of Ben-Zvi came from Russia, hinting at Russian Mafiya ties in the background of the Abramoff saga.

Senior Washington sources have cautioned that it would be a mistake to presume that the Abramoff money flow to Israel and Russia primarily went out of the United States. Abramoff's takeover of the gambling cruise ship line SunCruz gave him a perfect instrument for laundering millions of dollars a day through the offshore gambling tables.

Syria War Diversion

The Cheney push to install Netanyahu as Israel's next Prime Minister, replacing the now-incapacitated Ariel Sharon, is, according to Israeli sources, part of Cheney's desperate move to "change the subject" from his growing political problems in Washington.

Netanyahu is pledged, according to the Israeli sources, to a war with Syria, to divert attention, and to move ahead with the decade-old "Clean Break" scheme, drafted for Netanyahu in July 1996 by a group of American neo-con allies of Cheney. The "Clean Break" strategy paper was co-authored by Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, and others, and called for the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, followed by similar "regime changes" in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. David Wurmser, the single most vociferous advocate of "regime change" in Damascus, is now a senior Middle East policy aide to Cheney. He previously served under Doug Feith at the Pentagon, when Feith was Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the first Bush-Cheney Administration.

Cheney's war scheme against Syria also implicates Abramoff, according to a Jan. 11, 2006 story by Justin Raimondi, posted on antiwar.com. "One investigator, eager to obtain information about the neo-con-sponsored Reform Party of Syria, led by one Farid Ghadry, the Syrian version of Ahmed Chalabi" Raimondi wrote, "stumbled on the Abramoff connection: 'When repeated calls to [Ghadry's] organization went unanswered, I visited the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the RPS. Reform Party of Syria is in the office of super-Zionist lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Middle Gate Ventures, Abramoff's political advisory company, partners with RPS."

That's disturbing, so if this shit is true why is it so hard to bring charges against them?
That's what i don't get because i read shit like this all the time and it leaves me scratching my head.

Are we actually incapable of bringing those in power to justice?
It just doesn't make sense to me, but if this is all true then Cheney and Bush need removed, like today.

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by Cathedral
That's disturbing, so if this shit is true why is it so hard to bring charges against them?
That's what i don't get because i read shit like this all the time and it leaves me scratching my head.

Are we actually incapable of bringing those in power to justice?
It just doesn't make sense to me, but if this is all true then Cheney and Bush need removed, like today.

Don't you know, Cat? Just because you read something makes it TRUE. :rolleyes: :confused: :D ;)

[Cathedral]

Yeah, I read that somewhere, lmmfao...

[DLR'sCock]

Well almost everything that I was reading post 9-11 and pre-iraq about 4 years has come true.


So we shall wait and see....