Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
it’s not going to be the new normal. here’s a bit of advice, Pete. if you don’t want to ever see the likes of Trump again, then perhaps when the GOP nominates a decent person, your side could treat them fairly. that doesn’t mean say nothing but positive things, it means praise when they deserve it, criticize when they deserve it. And try to pretend to show a speck of consistency. Your side portrayed George W Bush as a low-IQ version of Hitler, McCain was a senile old racist, Romney was a heartless plutocrat who objectified women by having resumes in a binder. that crap, is a big big reason why Trump won the primary.
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I'll take your advice and raise you some republican dirty tricks that led to that.
Just why do you think Kavanaugh claimed his problems getting confirmed was revenge for the Clintons, do you know what his role was in the Arkansas Project?
1976 - Jimmy Carter was widely attacked by Republicans for truthfully admitting he had experienced moments of lust.
1980 - Bill Casey's Theft and Reagan's Debate Performance - In a 1983 book, Gambling with History, Time correspondent Laurence Barrett revealed that Reagan campaign aides "filched" (stole) President Carter's briefing papers to help prepare Reagan for the 1980 debate. Chief of Staff James Baker would later say that Reagan's campaign manager William Casey was the thief. Ronald Reagan defended the theft saying: "It probably wasn't too much different than the press rushing into print with the Pentagon Papers." Reagan appointed William Casey to head the CIA where he become the chief architect of the Iran-contra operation.
1980 - The October surprise - Republican operatives encourage Iran not to release the hostages prior to the presidential election with the promise of unfreezing Iranian assets under Ronald Reagan.
"The CIA Old Boys were reeling. In the 1970s, exposure of their dirty games and dirty tricks made the Cold Warriors look sinister--and silly. Then, President Carter ordered a housecleaning that left scores of CIA men out in the cold. In 1980, the CIA men wanted back in and their champion was former CIA director George Bush. With Bush and Ronald Reagan in power, the old spies could resume their work with a vengeance. The temptation was to do to Jimmy Carter what the CIA had done to countless other world leaders--overthrow him." --Robert Parry, Bush and a CIA Power Play, February 29, 1996
Oct. 18, 1980 , Chicago Tribune reporter John Maclean told a U.S. foreign service officer, David Henderson, that a Republican source had supplied a fascinating tip -- that George Bush was flying to Paris to discuss the hostages with Iranians.
"The Iranian parliament was meeting and we had every information from Bani-Sadr and others that they were going to vote overwhelmingly to let the hostages go. And at the last minute on Sunday [two days before the election] for some reason they had adjourned without voting.... The votes were there, but the Ayatollah or somebody commanded them to adjourn." -- President Jimmy Carter
"The phrase 'October Surprise' kept cropping up and was soon campaign rhetoric. The more I listened, the more I realized that they were actually dreading the thought that the hostages might be released--if it happened at a time they thought would be inconvenient for their election plans." … "[I] think the hostages' release...had to do with a deal, struck before the deal-maker was in office." -- Patti Davis (Reagan's daughter)
1980s - Iran-Contra Affair - Revealed a Republican cabal to illegally sell weapons to U.S. enemy Iran to finance the training and support of a Nicaragua Contra drug cartel which used CIA trained death squads to terrorize and maintain control over the people to grow and harvest cocaine. Nov. 18, 1987 A Congressional report states US President Ronald Reagan bore "ultimate responsibility" for wrongdoing by his aides in the Iran-Contra Affair. The reporter who linked the CIA to the sale of Nicaraguan crack in Los Angeles in the 1980s was found with two bullet holes in the back of his head, which of course was ruled as an apparent suicide.
Key people implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal reappeared at high-level posts in later Republican administrations, most notably in George W. Bush's administration.
BCCI Affair - Pakistan-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) catered to the most notorious tyrants and thugs of the late 20th century, including Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the heads of the Medellin cocaine cartel, Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal, Manuel Noriega, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a web of Washington lobbyists with close ties to President George H.W. Bush. BCCI was a massive criminal enterprise, engaged in fraud and money laundering for drug dealers, terrorists and arms traffickers all around the world. A French intelligence report obtained by The Washington Post in 2002 described the financial network operated by bin Laden today "is similar to the network put in place in the 1980s by BCCI." As one senior U.S. investigator said in 2002, "BCCI was the mother and father of terrorist financing operations." Democratic Senator John Kerry presided over the Senate probe that exposed the fraud, abuse and terrorist financing.
1986 - Karl Rove helps Bill Clement, the first Republican in a century to win a Texas gubernatorial race by holding a press conference to announce that a bug had been found in his office. Rove complained about how their campaign strategy was showing up so consistently in the other camp. The bug had only 2 hours left in a 3 hour battery life, which barely gave Rove time to plant the bug call the police and news media and smear a good Democrat Mark White.
1988 - Willie Horton Ads - The 1988 Bush-Quayle “Willie Horton” commercial played to overt racism and fear mongering. Whisper campaign questions Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis' mental state and that Kitty Dukakis once burned an American flag.
1992 - Ross Perot accuses Republicans of "dirty tricks" against his presidential campaign including a wiretap in his Dallas office and threats to publish phony nude photos of his daughter and sabotage her wedding. In July, Perot drops out until after his daughters wedding and then re-enters the race, splits the conservative ticket with George Bush and Clinton wins the presidency.
House Bank scandal - Republican Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, along with 7 freshman Republicans referred to as the Gang of Seven or "The Young Turks," tried to get rid of Democratic Congressmen by making a dramatic public display of denouncing corrupt Democrats in the House Bank scandal which amounted to Congressman getting advances on their paychecks because of very loose rules in the House Bank, which was not actually a bank. No money was stolen or lost. This back fired a little when it was found that Newt had also written a number of overdraft checks.
1994 - Republican Karl Rove helps George W. Bush in his Governors race against incumbent Democrat Ann Richards. Rove starts a whisper campaign that Richards is gay and runs push polling phone calls asking voters "would you be more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if you knew her staff is dominated by lesbians."
1996 - Billionaire, Ross Perot on "Meet the Press" said Republican Party operatives had asked him in 1992 for $1 million to finance a political dirty tricks campaign before he entered the race as an independent candidate. Perot, implicated Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour.
Troopergate was an early part of the "Arkansas Project." Republican fundraiser Peter W. Smith admitted to paying Arkansas State troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry $6,700 each to smear the reputation of President Bill Clinton. Self described "Conservative Hit Man" David Brock, writing for the Scaife owned American Spectator wrote and broke the story in 1993.
In a 1997 Esquire article titled "I Was a Conservative Hit Man" Brock recanted his claims. In 1998 he went further and personally apologized to Clinton. Brock went on to write: "Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" in which he exposed the right-wing conspiracy to destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton and Anita Hill.
Troopergate
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative
The "Arkansas Project" funded by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, was designed to damage and end the presidency of Bill Clinton through a series of bogus investigations. After wasting more than $25 million of taxpayer money to trump up charges against the Clintons on Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate and Filegate the right-wingnuts had to settle with exploiting the fear of Hillary Clinton to trap Bill Clinton into fudging about an affair.
February 12, 1999 The Republican controlled Senate acquits President Clinton of all impeachment charges. President Clinton had been asked "have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1, as modified by the Court." The definition excluded oral sex and President Clinton truthfully answered: "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky." The founding fathers defined impeachment for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States."
CIA operative Barry Seal came forward to refute the Republican attempt to link Clinton with Pablo Escobar. When in fact the drug ring in question was actually being run as a CIA sting operation and had nothing to do with Clinton.
The Arkansas Project smear campaign was amplified by the propaganda organs of the Republican Party including The Washington Times, owned by ultraconservative cult leader Sun Myung Moon, Right-wing propagandist billionaire Rupert Murdoch (FOX News and New York Post) as well as wing nut buffoon, Rush Limbaugh and the Internet gossip column "Drudge Report."
During the Clinton presidency the federal budget moved from a quarter-trillion-dollar deficit to a 2 trillion dollar projected surplus. Clinton balanced the US budget, fostered the longest economic expansion in US history, reduced crime and the number of people on welfare. Unemployment dropped from 7.5% to below 4% for the first time in more than 30 years and the Dow Jones rose from 3,200 to a record breaking 10,000.
Sept. 20, 2000 - Independent counsel announces that the Whitewater investigation is closed due to insufficient evidence against the president and first lady.
Clinton Timeline
Arkansas Project
The Hunting of the President
The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How it Corrupts Democracy
Republicans launched over 55 official congressional investigations against President Clinton including one investigation on the Clinton family cat "Socks" and12 hours of testimony on the use of the White House Christmas card list. Not one official congressional investigation has been started on George W. Bush.
GOP Investigated Pres. Clinton’s Cat
2000 - Republican Karl Rove is at the heart of George Bush's vicious smear campaign against fellow Republican John McCain in the South Carolina primary, claiming McCain was a stoolie while a P.O.W. in Vietnam and now emotionally unstable. Rove is also credited with a coordinated stealth campaign of push polling which asks South Carolina voters: "If you knew John McCain fathered an illegitimate black child would you be more or less likely to vote for him?" This was followed up with direct mail and church parking lot flyers to convince voters McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually his illegitimate daughter and that his wife was a drug addict. A Bush operative also stole McCain's email lists and directly emails McCain's closest supporters with scandal and lies. Ironically Karl Rove's mentor Lee Atwater, was the political strategist for Strom Thurman, U.S. Senator from South Carolina, who actually did have an illegitimate African American daughter.
The 2000 presidential campaign was overwhelmed by a smokescreen of suspicion created around Al Gore, designed to demorlize the Democratic base and suppress the overall vote.
Bush debate material is sent to Al Gore's campaign in an effort to make it appear as if Gore is spying on Bush. Bush's cousin calls race for Bush on FOX News, leading other networks to follow suit, prematurely. Thousands of Florida voters are wiped from the voting rolls by brother Governor Jeb Bush.
In May of 2001 the preliminary findings of the United States Commission on Civil Rights regarding the stolen election of 2,000 were published, concluding that Florida Gov. Bush, and the Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, turned a blind eye on election day which caused “a pattern of injustice, ineptitude and inefficiency.” Read More...
"The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters."
An open invitation to election fraud
2000 - Attacking Hillary - Right-wing propagandist Rupert Murdoch attacks Hillary Clinton in the midst of her 2000 senate race with a poisonous smear campaign. Murdoch-owned New York Post claimed that in 1974 Hillary had called one of her husband's aides "a f#cking Jew bastard." The story was based on a book published by Murdoch-owned HarperCollins, titled State of a Union: Inside the Complex Marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
The right-wing media went to town with the story and within hours, it was repeated on CNN, NBC, and of course, Murdoch-owned FOX News. Eventually it was discovered that the source and object of the story was a former Clinton campaign aide named Paul Fray, who was a Baptist and not even Jewish and had lost his law license for taking a bribe. Fray had also written to Mrs. Clinton in 1997, apologizing for calling her names and spreading false stories about her. The damage was done but Clinton won anyway.
2002 - Republican Dirty tricks oust Democratic Sen. Max Cleland by attacking his patriotism. Cleland, who volunteered for Vietnam and left three limbs there, had to endure seeing pictures of himself in a Republican Saxby Chambliss campaign ad next to images of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Chambliss sat out the Vietnam war with a bad knee.
Dirty-Bomb Politics
Republicans in Michigan recruited “stealth” candidates to run as phony Democrats for nine state Senate seats. The Muskegon Chronicle exposed and derailed the plan.
Republican "dirty tricks" in US mid-term elections
2003 - On JULY 8, Syndicated columnist Robert Novak mentions to Rove that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA undercover operative. Rove's comment: "I heard that too." On JULY 8, Novak's syndicated column reveals publicly the classified information that, according to "two senior administration officials," Plame is an undercover CIA operative, .
Wilson-Plame-Novak-Rove Timeline
Republicans Scooter Libby and Karl Rove, nicknamed “Turd Blossum” by George Bush, are the prime suspects in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame as hardball payback for her husband Joseph Wilson's criticism of the Bush administration.
Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password.
Senate GOP staff pried on Democrats
"Republican psy-ops are conveyor-belt slick, and ever on the offensive. The Heritage Foundation alone has lines to 1,500 conservative radio talk-show hosts. They build infrastructure, they build TV studios. Eighty percent of the talking heads on television are from conservative think tanks. Eighty percent. They train their people.” -- George Lakoff, Rockridge Institute
2004 - Republican Karl Rove is credited with an orchestrated stealth campaign of phone calls, direct mail and email in the bible belt claiming that if John Kerry were elected he would ban the Holy Bible in America. Church goers all across the country are told to "vote for the Christian." Even though John Kerry had lived his entire adult life in public service while George Bush was a spoiled, drunken frat boy bailed out by one family friend after another and who only found religion when the electoral math was explained to him.
Republican operative Nathan Sproul's company is under investigation for allegedly destroying voter registration forms signed by Democrats. Now comes new evidence about Sproul's connections to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
Republican dirty tricks
A group financially bankrolled by Bush supporters bankroll TV ads smearing the military record of John Kerry.
Republican-funded Group Attacks Kerry's War Record
Swiftboat Veterans: their lies and the real truth about John Kerry
George Bush's New England campaign chairman in 2004 and top Republican Party official was convicted on telephone harassment charges for his part in a plot to jam election day 2002 phones used to give rides to the polls. James Tobin could get up to seven years in prison and $500,000 in fines when he is sentenced in March.
Former Bush campaign official indicted in phone-jamming
2005 - Phony Robo Calls - The Republican Party makes illegal phony robo calls pretending to be Democrat in 2005 VA Gov race.
Hybrid Mode
