{Blogged by Brad in Portland, OR}

Just finished my hour on the Ron Insana Radio Show with Ann Coulter...Well, half hour with Coulter. She left at the bottom of the hour for some reason.

Prior to the show, when Ron asked her off air if she would be able to stay for the full hour, she said "Well, I had it down for 30 minutes, so I'll have to let you know at the bottom of the hour if I can stay."

For some reason or another, she was then gone after the bottom of the hour. Hopefully, you can listen and decide for yourself why that may have happened.

UPDATE FROM DAVID: Audio of Brad's debate with Ann Coulter is now available to download [MP3]. The breaks have been cut from this version. Total playing time is about 35 minutes. Or you can listen below, right here...

UPDATE 10/4/05: SpoofNews has some amusing coverage of the Brad/Coulter debate.

UPDATE 10/25/05: Thanks to a BRAD BLOG reader, the entire hour is now available via text transcript!

{Blogged by Brad from Portland, OR}

Cramming all of this into a single item, since I'm way up against it here in Portland where I'm speaking tonight (and all weekend) at the National Summit to Save Our Elections. If you're in the 'hood! Please come on by and say hello!

UPDATE: Our erstwhile engineer from our BRAD SHOWS in Crawford, Otie Mclay is here, and informs me he's currently streaming as much of the conference as possible LIVE right now at KPFTX.org! Go listen in!

Doing tons of media up here, trying to get the word out about the Summit and the grave need for Election Reform in America. (You can listen to two hours with me battling it out with "Conservative" Lars Larson yesterday, in studio, by way of example. Thanks for posting it, David!)

Got a call from the Ron Isana radio show folks inviting me to debate with ANN COULTER tomorrow morning at 9am PT (12noon ET). That should be fun. On Delay and Frist, etc. Will try to find a minute or two to bone up on it all late night tonight I guess! --- Insana is nationally syndicated all over the place.

UPDATE:See this item for listening links to hear the tape-delay version as it streams live again Saturday @ 3pm ET (Noon PT), and then for the archive posted thereafter.

It was nice to be in-studio, as well, this morning with Thom Hartmann up here. He's agreed to appear on The BRAD SHOW tomorrow (LIVE Saturday, 7p-11p ET or 4p-8p PT, with reBRADCast on Sunday at Noon ET). We'll have tons of stuff from the conference, loads of guests, including, but not limited to David Cobb, Clint Curtis, Robert Koehler, Ellen Theisen, and many more Election Reform All-Stars! We won't have phone lines, however, so you'll need to play along here at The BRAD BLOG in our Open Thread during the show.

Finally, and speaking of Election Reform All-Stars, Debra LaGuercio of the Daily Republic --- who picked up last week on our initial DIEB-THROAT story --- follows up with more on it this week!

It's a great column, that deserves to be read in its entirety, headlined, "Sadly, Dieb-Throat doesn't disappoint". It starts this way...

LaGuercio did receive "a deluge of feedback," but it wasn't what she had expected. Read the entire thing to find out how it came out. Wish I had more time to cover it today! But suffice to say, a new Election Reform All-Star is born in the media and her article ends simply "America - 1776-2004. R.I.P."

I'm reminded of the old Native American (I think) saying, "A path is laid one stone at a time."

Laying stones from Portland, OR...one at a time...and with your help...Talk to ya on the air tomorrow night! Brad

To be clear, most of the email we receive is extraordinarily kind. (And, while we're at it, apologies to those to whom we are, too frequently these days, unable to reply!) And then on occasion, we get something like this...

Ah, yes...the money...The big bucks we bloggers rake in more than makes up for all the long hours, Fred! We suppose the secret must now be out! That donations button is a big fat cash cow, baby!!! And thanks for giving us another excuse to link to it since O'Reilly was late sending his check again this month! That bastard... (Just kiddin', Bill! Who loves ya, baby?! See ya at the big Loofah Convention next month in Akron!)

In re: the Ann Coulter column we mentioned several times as running over at World Net Daily. It turns out the original version of her column was even more appalling than the one which was first edited before being sent out by her syndicator, Universal Press Syndicate (UExpress).

As MoveLeft points out, here is the phrase from the distributed version of her column, as seen at hate publication, World Net Daily (emphasis added):

And here is the phrase as written in Coulter's original version, still posted on her website (emphasis added):

"That old Arab"?...What a disgusting, slimy, little bitch. Feel free to send a note of complaint to Coulter's syndicator here.

We've got some business for much of the day, but perhaps later if time allows we'll try to collect a list of Email addresses for all of the "news" outlets that carry the words of this obnoxious, horrible, hate-filled, racist "woman" so you can let them all know what you think of them carrying her column. This woman is begging to be put out of business.

At the end of a fun read over at Watching the Watchers on "horrible fiendish cackling harpy" Ann Coulter's latest pile of self-serving venomous horsehit slash apology vis a vis the Gannon/Guckert Scandal, the good (though hard to type) ~A! picks up on a subtle shot that Fox "News" seemed to toss at the Right's favorite new whipping boy, Raw Story.

As ~A! noticed...

Why, ~A!? Because Raw is in the business of reporting news and, of late, they are doing it like no other site on or off the net. You'll note that Fox also took the time to link to faux "news" organization GOPUSA in their article as well. We suppose they'd hate for any of their reader/zombies to start noticing the difference between real news and Fox "News".

While you're watching the Watcher Watchers, you may also want to check out what they've uncovered from Republican pollster, Frank Luntz, whose great offering to history will have been his instructions to his GOP clients to use such words as "Death Tax" instead of "Inheritance/Estate Tax" when hypnotizing their zombies. Well, it worked. And the "Death Tax", along with many other clever turns of lexicographical trickery has made its way into the daily GOP parlance. Yes, language does matter. Especially to zombies.

And as our own aside, by way of reminder, we'll be panelling tomorrow (Sunday) at the Election Reform Teach-in in Santa Monica, with an esteemed group including Congresswoman Maxine Waters and a bunch of other Election Reform All-Stars. If you're local to So-Cal, and the rain has still stopped, come on out and say hey!

We'll be talking, amongst other things, about VR's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign the creation of which is just one of the too-many reasons we've had less time than usual to blog of late. We've quietly launched the VR DV4D campaign this morning and plan to plan to make quite a bit of noise about it this coming week.

But you, dear BRAD BLOGGERS, have heard about it before just about anybody else! So check it out, and send the bad guys a letter while you're there! You'll be glad you did!

More...as ever...later.

As mentioned in yesterday's only post, there are a number of items that are keeping me from blogging here as usual. The good news is, I'm making good progress, so hope to be back on the blog job soon. The bad news is, I'm still up against it for the moment, so blogging may continue to be slow-ish here for a bit longer.

So feel free to consider this another open thread...but I'll toss in a few of the latest notable Gannon/Guckert items:

Over. Out. And hopefully back soon...Oh, good luck to Dr. and Mrs. Yang who are being deposed today and tomorrow down in Florida! Anyone wanna go listen in and report back with notes? It's open to the public! Mrs. Yang is on at 9am tomorrow (Friday) morning!

(Blogged by Brad on the road...)

No doubt you've already heard of Swiftie John O'Neill being hoisted on his own petard, on tape, in Nixon's oval office telling Tricky Dick that he was "in Cambodia". Such a thing was to have been impossible according to O'Neill in his own book of dirty tricks known as "Unfit for Command".

You've also heard that O'Neill claimed not to be a Republican, and not to have been involved in politics for 30 years. Both lies quickly illuminated to the contrary as it was revealed that O'Neill has given some $15,000 to Republican campaigns over the last decade, and worked for Nixon, Rehnquist and other "not Republicans" during that time.

As well, Guest Blogger Jaime was quick to report here on Co-Author Jerome Corsi's habit of referring to the Democratic Nominee for President as "John Fucking Commie Kerry", Hilary "the fat pig" Clinton and other "ragheads" on various internet hate sites like FreeRepublic.com.

The lies and dirty tricks of these guys go on and on.

So it's probably not a suprise to see a story such as "And Yet Another Anti-Kerry Swift Boat Vet Caught Lying" revealing yet another of the "Swifties for Truth" as being...um...less than truthful by having sworn to an affadavit which he now admits contains only information that relied "on the account of war buddies, not what he witnessed" and that he himself lied about an extra-marital affair with a colleague.

And now I've learned that Regenry, who published "Unfit for Command" after most reputable publishers turned it down, pushes a White Supremacy Agenda! Yet for some reason, I'm still not surprised:

And if Bush wins in November, who will he have to thank for that now that this book and those ads and this nonsense has finally helped turn around a few of his polls?

Ann Coulter makes Bill O'Reilly appear - if only briefly - to not be a hideous person with an evil insidious agenda! Not all that easy to do. But if anyone can, it would be the insipid Ann Coulter.

This sample exchange, and it's "Editor's notes" come courtesy of "Left I..." as taken from the full O'Reilly Factor transcript from May 27, 2004:

Most of the country won't yet get Air America, the new Liberal radio network featuring Al Franken's "The O'Franken Factor" program, which launched today. Even in Los Angeles, where Air America currently is on the air (along with NY, Chicago, Portland, a couple of other cities and on XM Radio) many may have trouble picking it up on it's tiny 1580-am broadcast signal. To make matters worse in L.A., the show is running here on tape delay at Noon, instead of LIVE at it's 9am PT air time. (I guess they're avoiding going direct against Rush out here, but I'm not sure why.)

Nonetheless, with all of those first-day strikes against it, there is some good news to report. For one, the show does stream live on the Internet at 9am PT and offered a far better signal streamed on the net then it does on it's current on-air tape delay broadcast in L.A.

After hearing the first show's live stream, I can report - in general - so far, so good. The first show was head and shoulders above O'Reilly's freshman day on the radio. That would be due in no small part to the smart move of including Katherine Lanpher, a seasoned radio professional, as Franken's co-host. She kept the show moving smartly along without all the amateurish hemming and hawing we got from O'Reilly's first day (and continue to get, quite frankly, from his Radio Factor - although he's much improved.)

A good guest line-up today included former Senator and 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerry, Liberal icon Michael Moore and a call-in from Al Gore, among others. Also, it seems that Conservative icon Ann Coulter was present as well, though mercifully (for us) locked in the green room in a running gag (and sounding suspiciously like an unbilled Bebe "Dr. Lillith Sternin-Crane" Neuwirth).

Breath-of-fresh-air topics included the lousy deal made by the 9/11 Commission with the Bush Administration for Condoleezza Rice's public testimony in exchange for Bush and Cheney's joint, private, unsworn, unrecorded and untranscribed testimony, Michael Moore's publication of his best-seller "Stupid White Men" originally planned for September 11th, 2001 release and some of the rather stunning Email he's received directly from the troops in Iraq which seem to indicate that perhaps the media (whadda suprise!) may not be reporting the whole story on troop morale and the toll that this whole dubious affair is taking on their psyche.

Obviously, judging a new show of this sort on it's first broadcast is a mistake, so I'll avoid to much criticism or praise just yet, but suffice to say, it's a welcome voice on the Radio, and frankly anywhere in the media which until now has ranged from Far Right to Middle of the Road without a single outlet - anywhere - for the Left. So, welcome to the fray Air America! What took you so long?!

So what's really wrong with America? Take a step into the insular world that is the Conservative Echo Chamber of Talk Radio, Cable News and the Internet and the answer is easy to find?but only if you're actually looking for it.

It is to the shame of America, that most of the millions of folks who listen to Rush and Sean and all the rest of the Talk Radio cabal and who tune in religiously (pun intended) to the FOX News Channel, are NOT looking for what is really wrong with America. They are looking for validation that what they wish to believe is the only right thing for America.

They are looking to affirm their prejudices and cling to their long held intolerance by surrounding themselves in a world of others like them. A world which shuts out all opposing view points, but one which most insidiously of all, creates the fiction that they are actually ?fair and balanced?.

The lengths to which they will go to convince themselves that they have examined all reasonable points of view and have come to the only correct one is astounding. And yet, unless you are actually interested in taking a real look at the many sides of the various issues of societal debate today, you will quickly find the affirmation you are seeking to feel that you are right and everyone else is not only wrong, but ?crazy?, ?whacko? and dead set on the ?destruction of America and all it stands for?.

This is what passes for ?debate? in the Media today.

For example, ?the Left is against keeping our country safe from terrorism? (presumably then, they are actually hoping that Americans will be slaughtered by the thousands), ?they want to destroy the institution of marriage? (presumably then the left is made of entirely Homosexuals who despise Heterosexuality?), and are otherwise ?against the Rule of Law? (presumably then, they want to create an Anarchist state in America.)

For anyone without the desperate need to validate their own hatred and/or shore up their own insupportably weak political positions by finding someone or something to demonize (Saddam, the French, the Gay Community, Trial Lawyers), the statements above are obviously absurd.

But to the desperate Right Wing, clinging to the fading fate of Institutional Bias and Racism, it's not only important to demonize from the get-go, it's important to take the fight to the Left by creating their own set of false assumptions and arguments which are then easily defeated by common sense.

In other words, the argument is framed that ?the Media is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Liberal Left?. This argument immediately discounts the FACT that more folks listen and watch Rush, Sean, Drudge, Fox and the rest of the clan combined each day than the sum total of those who glance at the ?Liberal? media combined in a full week. (An argument that cannot be debated even if you are foolish enough to buy the straw man assumption in the first place that the rest of the media are ?Liberal? and that the Right Wing Media is just fair and balanced ?opposition view?).

But absurd assumptions are beside the point when you're looking for people to agree with you and join your cause.

Absurd assumptions are where the Conservative Echo chamber starts the day, after receiving Marching Orders about what matters on the Drudge Report, and then they play the rest of it out by arguing one side of a debate that doesn't even exist.

This morning Sean Hannity is at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, CA, on his ?Hannitization of America? tour plugging his latest manifesto ?Deliver Us from Evil : Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism?. He's playing to a pack of live foaming-at-the-mouth Right Wingers who break into a frenzied standing ovation after Sean's every sentence. It doesn't matter what he says, they're in favor it!

?Andy Rooney has employed hate speech because he described Pat Robertson as a ?whacko' after Robertson reported that God spoke to him to inform him that Bush would be re-elected in a ?blowout'?. {STANDING OVATION}.

?The Liberal Left wants to destroy the ?Institution of Marriage' in this country!? {STANDING OVATION}

?Democrats don't believe that Business should be able to profit from their hard work in this country!? {STANDING OVATION}

You know the story. It goes on and on. Take a look at Chaplin's classic The Great Dictator (1940) to see how easy it is to rally a crowd seeking a leader who will tell them what they want to believe. Simply create a false premise, argue the one side of it that represents any form of reason, and then add someone like the hapless Alan Colmes to the mix for a few minutes to give the impression that the issue has been debated fairly. Never mind the fact that the real debate has never been put on the table in the first place.

And if all else fails, despite all attempts to the contrary, should the real debate actually show it's face ? as in the issue of the Constitutionality of Gay Marriage ? we can always try and change said Constitution to reflect what we wish to be true. No matter how much it may violate the heretofore Death Worthy Cause of defending that same Constitution.

That's their game, and ? as far as they know ? they are winning. If the debate can be framed as Good versus Evil, who could possibly defend Evil? Who would want to? So as far as they are concerned, they are winning simply because there is nobody in their room, on their air, or on their bookshelves to tell them otherwise.

So the question remains: Are they winning?

They certainly have a lock on the Free Mass Media, dominating Talk Radio, Cable News and the Internet. They will forgo and/or twist their own values without blinking an eye at a moments notice if it keeps one of their own ?in power? (never mind the stuff they used to care about, like Fiscal Responsibility, States Rights, Right to Privacy and Conservative Interpretations of the Constitution that were once held so dear). They will buy enough books to re-affirm what they already believe in order to get the Super Stars of their Fallacious Strawman Debates (Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter, Ingraham etc.) to the top of the Best Seller Lists.

Winning a non-debate is easy. Who is there to defend the other side of the non-issue? They are counting on this. Appearance is everything.

So will they succeed in foisting their insular little world on the rest of the majority of Americans who actually do believe in Peace, Tolerance, Freedom, Property, Liberty and the Love of Constitution?

I don't know. I suppose we'll find out on November 2nd. They pulled it off once briefly (in 2000) and I suppose the question is whether America will fall for the same trick again.

If the Media is the Message, then the Message, no matter how falsely created and debated, wins the day. The Media is everything and the Right Wing owns it. No matter what you may hear when you tune into FOX NEWS or Rush.

If the people are smarter than to fall for that old trick ? and I have no real reason to believe that they are, even though they were smart enough to fend off the absurd attempted coup during the Clinton Era ? perhaps America can get back on course to become Ronald Reagan's ?Shining city on the hill? again. Though that won't happen if Sean Hannity and his insular, rabid, and determined band of Choir Preachers have anything to say about it.

Bill O'Reilly's work and reputation well proceed me. So I needn't go into too many details on the Number One Cable News Personality. At least not with the other excellent bloggists, like Maddox hot on the trail in his latest scholarly article entitled: "Bill O'Reilly is a big blubbering vagina".

So just a quick note to mention that on tonight's "Talking Points", O'Reilly continued on his mad crusade as he totters ever closer to his emotional tipping point and the inevitable melt down to follow. He again railed against the "Smear Merchants on both the Right and the Left". He said he was going to call them out, by name, from here on out since these sleazeballs are destroying our American Way of life. Or something to that effect.

Okay.

And then he went on to his first guest of the evening, "Fox News Analyst", Dick Morris.

We report. You decide.

I sent Mr. O'Reilly an Email the other day, but it looks like this one won't be making it onto the air (not "pithy" enough?). So I'll post it here for you:

Any idea what the coming Fall of O'Reilly will be? Live boy? Dead girl? Married to his own mother? Keep those comments and email's coming...but remember, keep 'em pithy.