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Former President George HW Bush Dies At 94

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Source: MCT / Getty George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States has died at the age of 94. His death, was announced by his office. See their statement below: Statement by the Office of George H. W. Bush on the passing of the 41st President of the United States of America this evening at 10:10pm CT at the age of 94. pic.twitter.com/XUPgha2aUW — Jim McGrath (@jgm41) December 1, 2018 Bush served as the 41st president from 1989 to 1993, following two terms as vice president under Ronald Reagan and the father of the 43rd president, George W. Bush. Bush was also a World War II naval pilot who survived being shot down over the Pacific, led the CIA and spent eight years as vice president before taking the Oval Office. Bush’s death comes less than eight months after that of his wife of 73 years, Barbara Bush.

Former President George HW Bush Dies At 94

Chris Christie Lied About 9/11 Connection During GOP Debate: WATCH!

Last night's Republican primary debate was a lot like Atlantic City: there were lots of sad white people making bad decisions and losing to Donald Trump. Sure, Trump was his usual testy, bloviating self, and the man kicked off the night by betraying his own party and calling Rosie O'Donnell a “fat pig,” but if you looked only at today's media coverage and the public's response, you'd think the Donald absolutely crushed it. Yes, Trump thinks he won , and millions seem to agree, but there were nine other candidates on the dais with him last night, and several showed that they've got quite a bit of fight left in them. One of the most memorable moments came when Governor Chris Christie squared off with Senator Rand Paul over the question of national security (clip above). Paul is famously opposed to the NSA's collection of phone records, and Christie has gone so far as to say the laissez faire libertarian should be called before congress in the event of another terrorist attack. Christie went into full-blown attack mode against Paul, accusing him of “blowing hot air” and musing about constitutional law while guys like Christie are out in the trenches fighting terrorists. “I was appointed U.S. Attorney by President Bush on September 10th, 2001, and the world changed enormously the next day, and that happened in my state. This is not theoretical to me,” Christie said at one point. It was a powerful indictment of politicians who can afford to be cavalier because they've never experienced the tragedy of a terrorist attack firsthand. The only problem is that it's total BS. According to both Wikipedia and his own website, Christie didn't take office as US Attorney for the District of New Jersey until 2012. Naturally, the wounds of 9/11 were still fresh, and we have no doubt that Christie had a hand in dealing with the legal fallout, but claiming the attack took place on his first day in office is the sort of valor theft that cost Brian Williams his job. Several media outlets have pointed out that Christie wasn't even nominated for the post until December of 2001. You've gotta give the guy credit for thinking he could get away with such a colossal whopper on national TV (fill in joke about Christie and colossal Whoppers), and we'd rather hear him fabricate his past than listen to him lecture us about pulling out any day. That said, lying about 9/11 heroism would be the sort of thing that bring a campaign to an abrupt halt…if everyone wasn't too busy gawking at Donald Trump to notice.  

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Chris Christie Lied About 9/11 Connection During GOP Debate: WATCH!

All 5 Living Presidents Converge For George W. Bush Library Dedication Ceremony [Photos]

The five living presidents came together for the George W. Bush Presidential Library dedication ceremony in Dallas, Thursday (April 25). Putting their political differences aside, the presidents praised President Bush for his eight years in office…. Continue

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All 5 Living Presidents Converge For George W. Bush Library Dedication Ceremony [Photos]

New Lil Talented Artist On The Block: 15-Year Old Beautiful ‘Jamia’ Proves Limitless With Talent And Potential [Video]

Th is a girl that has already gone places… and will only go further based on a great look and great talent: Performing for the first time at the tender age of 5 as a special guest on “Showtime at the Apollo”, Jamia had appeared on more stages by 15 than most do in a lifetime. Jamia graced many stages from Good Morning America and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno to singing before a NASA delegation, the NBA All-Star Game, touring with David Foster and being flown in as a surprise guest for John Travolta’s 50th birthday party. At the age of 11, she performed before the World on the Oscar stage, making her the youngest ever to do so, following the Academy Award nomination for the song she performed in her role in the movie August Rush. An accomplished young actress as well, Jamia starred in multiple TV shows including The Young and the Restless, Life Is Not A Movie (The Fantasia Barrino Story), The Backyardigans, Romeo and My Wife & Kids. However, music was always her first love, and with a voice loved and supported by a wide and growing international fan base including some of music’s most revered names such as Aretha Franklin, Josh Groban, Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Fantasia, David Archuleta, Celine Dion, Brandy, Kelly Rowland, Beyonce, Mario and Chris Brown, the world anxiously awaits what President Bush described simply as “The definition of the Future”. Turn the page to see her sing Rihanna’s “Take A Bow” acapella.

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New Lil Talented Artist On The Block: 15-Year Old Beautiful ‘Jamia’ Proves Limitless With Talent And Potential [Video]

Rewind The Track: Presidential Photographer Give A First Hand Moment-By-Moment Account Of George Bush’s Reaction To 9/11

As horrific as 9/11 was for all of us, can you imagine what it must have been like to the George Bush on that morning?? As the president’s personal photographer and head of the White House Photo Office, Eric Draper was with President George W. Bush for nearly every day of his eight-year term, often just a few feet away. On the morning of September 11, 2001, he was there, too. “My job was to document the president, to follow him everywhere,” Draper told CNN in an exclusive interview. “But I had no idea what stories, what events would play out … September 11 changed everything.” Draper, a former newspaper and wire photographer who is now a freelancer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ended up at President Bush’s side on that fateful day and made some of the most iconic and memorable images of the president as the tragedy unfolded. Source Peep the following pages to see The Presidents movements on the fateful day

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Rewind The Track: Presidential Photographer Give A First Hand Moment-By-Moment Account Of George Bush’s Reaction To 9/11

Maddow Laments That Five Pro-Life GOP US Senate Candidates Have No Rape/Incest Exception

Wow, I didn’t realize this until watching radical left MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s September 16 rant bemoaning the “great, unacknowledged, big honking policy issue of this year’s elections nationwide.” That is, at least 5 Republican , Tea Party -backed US Senate pro-life candidates oppose aborting innocent babies whose fathers are sexual criminals. With Christine O’Donnell of Delaware newly added to the list, the roster includes Sharron Angle of Nevada, Ken Buck of Colorado, Joe Miller of Alaska, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. This is as it should be, which I’m thrilled to know. This must have pro-aborts quaking. They have managed for decades to get Americans to go along with 100% of abortions by appealing to their compassion for mothers impregnated by rapists and family members, whose abortions account for no more than 1.5% of all, according to Guttmacher . Many pro-life politicians, including President Bush , have caved on this point, which is contradictory. Either all preborns are human beings, or they’re not. If they are, they must all be protected. In fact, abortion protects rapists, particularly friends and family. A prime example would be the imaginary victim Maddow described, a “14-yr-old girl who is raped by your uncle, or by your father.” Even Joycelyn Elders , President Clinton’s pro-abort attorney general, stated pregnancy is evidence of sexual abuse. Abortion destroys the evidence. Who doesn’t think the 1st thing a victimizing uncle or father would do is take the pregnant 14-yr-old for an abortion? Click to enlarge… Almost every time I write on the topic of rape and pregnancy I refer to this excellent article pointing to the only study ever done on this topic. It found first that 75-85% of mothers impregnated by rape do not abort. Abortion should not be presumed in these cases. It concluded that mothers who abort their babies following rape are psychologically worse off than those who did not. One reason is abortion is also a violent act; many rape victims reported they felt like it was “medical rape.” Mothers who did not abort felt they were helping good come from evil and in a sense conquering their rape. Themselves having been victimized, they did not want to victimize their baby. This is yet another great political development in a year full of great political developments in our fight to protect innocent preborn life.

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Maddow Laments That Five Pro-Life GOP US Senate Candidates Have No Rape/Incest Exception

CAIR Suggests Tea Party, GOP Are Behind Nationwide Anti-Muslim Campaign

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is putting some of the blame on both the Tea Party and the Republican Party for what it sees as a growing tide of anti-Muslim anger.  CAIR officials said the rise in “Islamophobia” stems from the controversy surrounding the Islamic center and mosque that Muslims plan to build a few blocks from Ground Zero.   “We’ve seen a really strong uptick in Islamophobia recently – primarily sparked by the controversy over the Manhattan Islamic center,” Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s chief spokesman, told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “We’ve seen hate vandalism at mosques in California; in Tennessee, we had an arson attack; at a mosque in Arlington, Texas, we had an arson attack; and something that wasn’t even reported nationwide, in May we had a bomb attack at a mosque in Jacksonville, Florida,” he said.   Hooper said the attacks could be driven by many factors: “The question is, why? Is it tied to the November elections? Is it tied to the rise of the Tea Party movement? Is it tied to the economy?” he asked. “I think it’s pretty clear that it’s been sparked…by these hate groups and their opposition to the Islamic community center in Manhattan.”   CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad was even more direct, saying that the Tea Party and the GOP have given the “green light” to a nationwide campaign to deny Muslims their civil rights and ultimately expel them from the United States.   “[W]e used to deal with individual cases of Islamophobia, harassments, and discrimination against Muslims,” Awad said. “Today, and in the past few months – almost maybe one year, we can say one year — we have seen an organized effort, we have seen organizations built to fight the presence of Muslims in the United States and to deny Muslims’ right to freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and even to be an elected official.   “Unfortunately, this is done, we believe, for political convenience and reasons. The Pamela Gellers and Robert Spencers, they’re trying to spool religious hatred against Muslims for obvious reasons – because they do not want Muslims to be in the United States,” Awad said. (Geller, a blogger, is executive director of Stop Islamization of America; Spencer, a columnist, is director of Jihad Watch and has written a number of books critical of Islam.)   Awad named the GOP and the Tea Party movement as the groups responsible for the anti-Muslim campaign.   “Secondly, yes it is a mid-term election year, and unfortunately the Tea Party and the Republican Party have given the green light for these people to defame and stereotype Muslims, and unfortunately as we’ve said, these have led to violence against Muslims.”   Awad called on local, state, and federal authorities “to provide extra protection for the Muslim community in the next days and weeks based on the kind of hysteria that we’re seeing.”   Hooper said the nationwide anti-Muslim sentiment had drowned out any reasonable discussion of the Ground Zero mosque (the Park51 center).   When CNSNews.com asked whether CAIR agreed with Park51 planner Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf that America was an “accessory to the crime” of 9/11 and that Osama bin Laden was “made in the USA,” Hooper said that a reasonable debate was no longer possible.    He also called the Park51 project a “test case” for religious freedom. “It’s gone way beyond whether you think the project is wise, is a good project, whether you think the sponsors are the best sponsors or they’re not — it’s gone way beyond that,” he said.   “It’s now a litmus test, a test case for religious freedom in America. Whatever questions you would have for the imam, those should be addressed to him – but again, it’s no longer limited to the imam or to the sponsors of the project. It’s now a test case.”   Asked whether there is any legitimacy to the debate over Park51, Hooper repeated his assertion that anti-Muslim “hysteria” had turned the project into a test of religious freedom itself.   Awad, however, called it a “false assumption” that Islam and 9/11 are connected. He said it really doesn’t matter where the Islamic center is built.   “We’ve been asked this question several times, and unfortunately the whole nation has been consumed into this [question] about sensitivities and having a so-called mosque on Ground Zero,” he said.    “Well, (a) it is not a mosque; it is not on Ground Zero, it is two blocks [away]. There are so many buildings between Ground Zero and that building…and second, we totally reject the false assumption that our faith, Islam, has to do anything with 9/11. So submitting to this false assumption is really condemning our own faith in the 9/11 attacks and this is really a collective guilt that we do not submit to.” Crossposted at NB sister site CNSNews.com

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CAIR Suggests Tea Party, GOP Are Behind Nationwide Anti-Muslim Campaign

Miracle on West 57th: CBS Ties Lee to Gore and Quotes Assessment of Bush as ‘Intelligent’

Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, without Katie Couric, uniquely amongst the broadcast network evening newscasts tied Discovery Channel hostage-taker/bomber James Lee to Al Gore and, even more miraculously, highlighted how Tony Blair, in his new book, describes George W. Bush as “intelligent.” Reporter Wyatt Andrews relayed in his story on the incident in suburban DC: In an anti-corporate protest two years ago, Lee was arrested while throwing cash outside of Discovery’s offices. He said in court he had been moved to save the planet, partly by Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Neither ABC nor NBC mentioned Gore’s inspiration. (ABC’s Pierre Thomas on World News: Lee “has protested at the Discovery Channel repeatedly, raising concerns about the environment and over-population.” NBC’s Tom Costello on Nightly News referred to Lee “handing out a rambling leaflet that called on Discovery to devote more programming to global warming and animal extinction.”) Later in the newscast, fill-in anchor Harry Smith squeezed in a short note about A Journey: My Political Life : “Tony Blair’s long-awaited memoir is out tonight and it includes the former British Prime Minister’s take on some of the famous and powerful. President Bush: ‘Intelligent,’ ‘knew exactly what he wanted’…” Washington, DC area viewers, however, didn’t learn who Gore inspired or Blair admired since WUSA-TV channel 9, CBS’s Gannett-owned DC affiliate, didn’t carry Wednesday’s CBS Evening News, electing to stay with local coverage of the Silver Spring, Maryland events.

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Miracle on West 57th: CBS Ties Lee to Gore and Quotes Assessment of Bush as ‘Intelligent’

Olbermann Sarcastically ‘Thanks’ Bush for Starting Troop Withdrawal, ‘Neocons Lied to Get Us in There’

On Wednesday’s Countdown show, responding to conservatives who wanted President Obama to give more credit to President Bush for apparent successes in Iraq, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann sarcastically thanked the former President and charged that the war in Iraq was Bush’s “false war.” He went on to claim that, “The neocons lied about Iraq to get us in there.” Guest Jeremy Scahill of the left-wing “The Nation” magazine joined in slamming President Bush and “neocons” for the Iraq war, claimed the troop surge did not play a significant role in stabilizing the country, and ended up asserting that Bush administration members who supported the invasion “shouldn’t be able to leave their houses without being confronted with the death and destruction that their lies caused.” And, even though various news outlets reported on the presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in the country years before the 2003 invasion, Scahill claimed that “it was the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq that created an al-Qaeda presence in that country.” But, as previously documented by NewsBusters , back in January 2003 and again in March 2004, the NBC Nightly News relayed claims that the Bush administration had “passed up several opportunities to take [Zarqawi] out well before the Iraq war began.” Below is a complete transcript of the segment with Jeremy Scahill from the Wednesday, September 1, Countdown show on MSNBC: KEITH OLBERMANN: But praising Mr. Bush was not enough for those war supporters, unrealistic even by Bill Kristol’s standards. Former Bush National Security Advisor Steven Hadley told the Wall Street Journal, quote, “I thought I owed it to the former President that somewhere out there, somebody gives him some credit and points out that he is the one actually that started withdrawing U.S. troops.” Okay, I’ll do it. I, Keith Olbermann, do hereby give former U.S. President George Walker Bush some credit for starting to withdraw U.S. troops, except for those who were withdrawn because they were already dead – 4,427 of them – for whose presence in that nation I also credit President Bush. So, thank you, Mr. Bush, for starting to withdraw those troops lucky enough not to die in your false war. Thank you, Mr. Bush, for starting to withdraw those troops lucky enough to leave before they joined the ranks of the 31,000 whose bodies and lives and futures were shattered by your false war. Thank you for starting to withdraw after bankrupting our nation for your war after it became clear even Iraq would no longer let you stay, and just in time for America to try to accomplish something in Afghanistan, nine years after you let Osama bin Laden get away so you could fight the war for which America, we are told, should now thank you. Adding his thanks tonight, the national security reporter for the Nation magazine, Jeremy Scahill, also the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Jeremy, thanks for your time tonight. JEREMY SCAHILL, THE NATION: Thank you. OLBEMRANN: All right, go ahead. Share your thanks to President Bush while we’re on this. SCAHILL: Well, Keith, you know who should be thanking President Bush tonight? The Iranian government. They have a much greater influence in Iraq now than they ever have had. Russian and Chinese oil companies that have gotten a lot of the oil contracts there. Anyone who likes to kill Americans should thank President Bush. And also among those that should thank President Bush are the people in possession of the billions of missing dollars that went missing in George Bush`s Iraq. The people who don’t have any obligation to thank President Bush are the families of the thousands of U.S. servicemen and women that died in that country, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians that died, the millions of Iraqis that are displaced as a result of this illegal, immoral war that unfortunately, Keith, and we have to say this, was supported by Hillary Clinton when she was a Senator, and Joe Biden when he was a Senator. So the blame should be shared across the board. But George Bush is number one responsible for this, and deserves no thanks from anyone except people what could be described as enemies of this country and of security in the world. OLBERMANN: The former coalition spokesman, Dan Senor, said that the tone of the speech last night was fine. As I mentioned, Bill Kristol called the speech commendable, even impressive. Why are the others so insistent on the President praising Bush, without getting too deeply into the psychology of mass hypnosis and other things that might be relevant. Just the basics. SCAHILL: Right, well, these people have a PhD in lying, and a master’s degree in manipulating intelligence. And it’s really sobering to see this kind of brass historical revisionism happening in real time. The idea that these people want to post some kind of false flag of victory on the corpses of all who have died in Iraq because of their decisions. These people destabilized Iraq. They destabilized the Middle East with their neocon vision of redrawing maps. And they didn’t even succeed in their own stated mission. This is a special kind of pathological sickness that these individuals collectively are plagued with. OLBERMANN: The neocons lied about Iraq to get us in there, and now, as you point out, they’re lying about how we got out. Since they were not paying attention, we assume deliberately, it’s not that complicated, but can you explain the factors that actually led to the reduction of violence there, the ones that they erroneously credit to the surge? SCAHILL: Right, pardon me for introducing a little bit of fact onto cable news over these 24 hours. But the reality is there was no success of the surge. The fact is that Bush’s policy in Iraq caused massive destabilization, led to a civil war that killed upwards of a million Iraqis. There were ethnic cleansing campaigns. When the surge troops went in there, Baghdad was a walled off city. The Sunnis had been pushed out and sided with the United States. Muqtada al-Sadr responded to the announced time table for withdrawal that the neocons so opposed by saying he considered it a truce with the Americans and pulled his forces off the streets. So the entire surge myth permeates to this day. And it’s actually one big lie. OLBERMANN: The Hadley crediting of the Obama Iraq policies goes with it, arguing that Iraq was worth it. But he says that al-Qaeda in Iraq is, quote, “still capable of spectacular terrorist attacks.” And he simply asserts that somehow those are not a strategic threat anymore. Iraq’s not a threat because the Republicans don’t have the White House? Is that what it boils down to? SCAHILL: Well, let’s remember, and I’d like to remind Mr. Hadley, I’m sure he watches your show every night, Keith, that it was the Bush administration’s policy in Iraq that created an al-Qaeda presence in that country. It was their policies that destabilized that country and caused the deaths of so many Americans and so many Iraqi civilians. Steven Hadley probably sees Osama bin Laden at his corner store or hiding in his bathroom somewhere. So these people have zero credibility and have no business in public life anymore. They shouldn’t be able to leave their houses without being confronted with the death and destruction that their lies caused. OLBERMANN: Jeremy Scahill of the Nation, as always, a pleasure. Thank you, Jeremy. SCAHILL: Thank you.

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Olbermann Sarcastically ‘Thanks’ Bush for Starting Troop Withdrawal, ‘Neocons Lied to Get Us in There’

On MSNBC, an Incensed Maddow Howls Over Obama’s Kind Words for George W. Bush

President Barack Obama’s decision to include, in his Tuesday night address from the Oval Office on the end to the “combat mission” in Iraq, a sentence respectful toward former President George W. Bush, appalled MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Anchor Keith Olbermann recited Obama’s graciousness toward Bush (“It’s well known that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset, yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops or his love of country and commitment to our security”) and then, obviously speaking for himself and the entire MSNBC team, proposed: “There are people who would support President Obama who would howl at hearing that said aloud more than once.” Maddow indeed howled, launching into an indignant rant: To have in this speech, as combat operations are ending, to have…the President not only not addressing the circumstances in which we went to war, but these kind words for President Bush , describing his “commitment to our security” despite the recklessness with which President Bush discarded that national security in favor of this war of choice, which only diminished our security, and is responsible, probably, for the Afghanistan war still going on today, for the deaths of people who have died in Afghanistan after the time after which that war would have ended had we not gone to Iraq — not to mention all of the people who died in Iraq. After finally taking a breath, she continued: To talk about him having a demonstrated “commitment to our security,” having started this war on the terms on which he started it, I mean, it’s beyond restraint from President Obama and anybody in the pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush camp who doesn’t feel like they’ve been given the greatest political present they never deserved, was not listening to this speech. From MSNBC’s Countdown at about 8:24 PM EDT, just after President Obama completed his August 31 speech carried by all the networks: KEITH OLBERMANN: That one sentence in there, “It’s well known,” referring to President Bush, “that he and I disagreed about the war from its outset, yet no one could doubt President Bush’s support for our troops or his love of country and commitment to our security.” There are people who would support President Obama who would howl at hearing that said aloud more than once. Once again, contextualize this in terms of the entire administration. RACHEL MADDOW: Yeah, I’m, I think we shouldn’t get past how remarkable it is, how much the proponents of the Iraq war are getting off easy here. I mean, we’ve got Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolten and these guys, like out now offering their suggestions on what ought to happen in Iraq next. Paul Wolfowitz, who said that the war would pay for itself, that we wouldn’t have to spend any money there. And to have in this speech, as combat operations are ending, to have – as you point out Keith – the President not only not addressing the circumstances in which we went to war, but these kind words for President Bush, describing his “commitment to our security” despite the recklessness with which President Bush discarded that national security in favor of this war of choice, which only diminished our security, and is responsible, probably, for the Afghanistan war still going on today, for the deaths of people who have died in Afghanistan after the time after which that war would have ended had we not gone to Iraq — not to mention all of the people who died in Iraq. To talk about him having a demonstrated “commitment to our security,” having started this war on the terms on which he started it, I mean, it’s beyond restraint from President Obama and anybody in the pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush camp who doesn’t feel like they’ve been given the greatest political present they never deserved, was not listening to this speech. OLBERMANN: They won’t.

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On MSNBC, an Incensed Maddow Howls Over Obama’s Kind Words for George W. Bush