As we sit outside on Memorial Day, enjoying coffee and wireless net access at a friendly Coffee House (Thanks-a-Latte!) outside of Solvang, California where we've taken a few days respite from the L.A. grind...I've been pondering the interesting ironies of a free choral concert by the Capella of Santa Barbara that we caught last night at the historic Mission Santa In�s nearby.

The mission is celebrating it's 200 year presence here amongst the clear blue skies and rolling tawny vistas of the Santa Ynez mountain valley.

Within 3 minutes drive, one passes from the windmills of the Dutch founded tourist mecca of Solvang, through the Spanish Mission and onto the Chumash Indian reservation (featuring a beautiful sprawling new casino by the way - even if it doesn't feature my favorite game, Pai Gow Poker).

Just a few miles in the other direction towards the sea and through the rolling hills dotted with vineyards in bloom and horse and cattle and ostrich farms is the Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Centuries of American multi-culturalism blended seamlessly into the melting pot that America is supposed to be...all along one 10-mile or so stretch of peaceful central California Gold Country.

The Faux Conservatives in this country love to refer to this state as the Land of Fruits and Nuts. Either because it is, or because California's gone Democrat in Presidential elections ever since the Reagan glory days have faded. Or perhaps because we generally stand as a bellweather state in the forefront of Progressive Governmental Policy in America.

Those same Wingnuts, like the despicable Michael "Hope you get AIDS and die" Savage, love to decry the continuing march towards "Multiculturalism" in this country as somehow anti-American or pro-Terrorist or whatever absurdity du jour they like to use to ridicule the varied people of this country who are simply trying to get along with each other in increasingly crowded quarters.

While enjoying the splendid acoustics and moving performance of near-to-authentic-as-possible religious (and a few traditionally secular) hymns and songs that have found their place here for hundreds of years --- all brought to the area via Mexico and Spain and Russia and by the original native Chumash inhabitants --- one can't help but marvel at the many colors and flavors that have come together to embody the America that most of us live in today.

The Choir's director, apparently a scholar in local culture and religious lore, told the story of how he was recently reading through some of the archives at the Santa Barbara Mission from the early to mid 1800's. He came across a petition presented to the first Public School in Santa Barbara, signed by the parents of the attending children, protesting the newly emerging movement towards Bilingual Education at their school.

In short, they were against it. They didn't want any of their children to be taught classes in English!

A bit of irony there, not lost a bit on the Californicators of all ethnicities in attendance last night. But also one that gave me both hope and pause that this growing movement of hostility towards this newest tinting of the American color as we muddle into the main of the 21st Century, may just be the normal passsing knee-jerks of those reactionaries who have conveniently either forgotten their own past, or who simply wish to horde all the spoils for themselves.

It seems there's little new in the world as far as the intolerance and selfishness of some of those already established in this great country towards the newer or less fortunate arrivals.

But if this small, quiet, peaceful and welcoming stretch of Central California, with several centuries of history to learn from, is any indication then perhaps we indeed shall overcome someday.

Here's hoping your Memorial Day was as peaceful and splendid as ours.

Josh Marshall hits the nail on the head in his analysis of last week's speech by Bush.

He points out that as Bush continues to inch ever closer to Kerry's position on Iraq, he is no longer trying to sell what good may come of the mess he made there, but rather, that he is the best equipped to not fuck up too much more than what he has already so desperately fucked up:

Sounds about right. He closes with a wonderfully disturbing metaphor...

New Bush-Cheney campaign slogan?: "Vote for us! How much worse could we possibly do?!"

Now that the dissembling, history re-writing and legacy creating on Iraq is in full swing by the Republican Spinmeisters (I actually had one Rightwingnut blogger write me recently with a straight face that he "didn't think Bush actually said anything about nuclear weapons...") we can thank the fine Americans in Rep. Henry Waxman's office for providing a searchable database on Administration lies and misstatements on the threat posed by Iraq.

So next time you hear one of your brain-addled Rightwing friends or family members regurgitate Paul Wolfowitz saying on the radio (as he did on March 16th, 2004) that "We never said there were stockpiles." ...

Or Rumsfeld shows up on Face the Nation (as he did on March 14th, 2004) to say "Well, you're the ... you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase 'immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's... that's what's happened."...

You'll be able to stop by this database, and easily find the time when Rumsfeld said to the Congressional Armed Services Committee on September 19th, 2002:

"[N]o terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein and Iraq."

You can only fool some of the people some of the time. Thankfully, it's getting much harder for these bad bad dangerous irresponsible folks to be able to do just that. Is it time to start calling him "Baghdad Bush"?

It's only gonna get worse before it gets better, I'm afraid. The faint of heart may want to turn back now.

Bill Sammon, the Whitehouse mouthpiece from the Washington Times, the Whitehouse organ, reports the new plan...

Try to keep all of the above in mind as you listen and watch the Mainstream Conservative Media over the next six months. The message from all corners should be in remarkably predictable GOP lockstep coordination, unless they really start to panic. In which case, all bets are off.

For the record, all opinions on the BRAD BLOG are the original thought of it's author and belong neither to the DNC, the DCCC, the Kerry Campaign, or the Daily Barbra Streistand Talking Points Memo.

Bring it on.

View the Trailer and sign up to watch new episodes for free...Looks like it should be funny. For Survivor fans and Democrats anyway...Or Republicans with a sense of humor (therefore, Republican viewership may be very low).

Remember the Republican outrage directed at Bill Clinton when the US was running out of Tomahawk missiles back in 1999?

Well, oddly enough, I've yet to hear a single condemnation of George W. Bush by a Republican for running out of BULLETS IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR for christ-sake!

Though, yes, the insane Bush dead-enders over at Free Republic (where I was banned after just one post...so much for the "Free" in Free Republic I guess), a few folks incredibly are still blaming Bill Clinton for this newest disgrace!

Miraculously, one poster succeeding in avoiding the censors over there (so far), and was able to make this post:

Sad.

No matter what Rush and Sean and O'Reilly tell you, the "Liberal Media" is simply a lie they would like you to believe to benefit their own cause. The NY Times --- the paper of record which sets the agenda for the rest of the world's papers --- admitted earlier this week how they were a sycophantic tool for the Bush Administration's propoganda to help trick America into believing we should go to war with Iraq.

And now CNN proves again how it too is a mouth-piece for Administration Propoganda. Courtesy of Atrios:

So late last night / early this morning, while listening to Air America, I was alerted to a web poll being run over on Hannity.com asking "Who should be President of the United States?"

I stopped by, voiced my opinion, and saw that the results of the unscientific web poll to that point --- with some 11,000+ votes cast --- was about 65% Kerry, 33% Bush, 2% Nader.

This morning when I woke up, I checked it again. It was then at 75% Kerry, 22% Bush, 3% Nader.

Checked back about 20 minutes later to find that "This poll has been disabled."

So presumably, there's a kink in the well-oiled GOP Media Spin Machine. Was the poll taken down because it was soiled after Air America alerted listeners to it's existance? Presumably, Hannity either did, or would have told his 10 million or so (largely Republican) listeners to stop by and vote on his web poll and then reported the Fair and Balanced results later on his show.

Yet the "inconsequential", "failing", "nobody listens to it" Air America informs it's American listeners about the poll which resulted in numbers --- I guess --- that Sean didn't care for. So the poll comes down.

It's a rather small point, nothing as outrageous as repeatedly playing the uncut audio of an American screaming in horrific agony as his head is sawed off "live" on the air (as I reported in "Sean Hannity: American Shame") but it does serve to illustrate the desperate and deceptive Anti-American nature of the #2 GOP Spokesperson who is given free reign on the Public Airwaves coast-to-coast across the nation.

Perhaps it's time for another look at the FCC's "Equal Time Rule" which is seemingly now wholly ignored as it applies to the political propoganda being shovelled out under the guise of "entertainment" on America's Public Airwaves. I'm not holding my breath.

UPDATE: After listening to the first two and a half hours of Hannity's show today, he has not made one mention of his aborted poll. Down the memory hole, I guess...

In case you still wonder how anybody could suspect the Bush Administration of being less than honest...I mean, enormous liars...Take a look at this snippet from the press briefing aboard Airforce One on the afternoon of September 11, 2001:

Remind me again why we should believe them about anything at this point? And isn't that lack of credibility alone --- both here and worldwide --- reason enough to remove them from office immediately? How effective can they be when nobody in the world trusts them? And they said nobody trusted Clinton?!

(Thanks to ProudLiberals.com for the find!)

Remember when Dubya was arguing for those Tax Cuts during the 2000 election because the economy was so good that "folks deserved some of their money back"? (He stated during the debates that he refused to believe there would be a downturn in the economy - It's the judgement, Stupid!...but I digress before I've even begun)...And then after he was "elected' and the economy went south he again argued for Tax Cuts this time because they were needed to jumpstart the slumping economy.

That's the GOP Win-Win Spin-Spin. Same set of plans no matter what the circumstances. Just find any appropriate justification for what you wanted to do in the first place.

It's ideology in place of reality. Only the policy matters. Not the reasons for them. They want what they want, and it has nothing to do with you or me, or the "problem" they claim to be trying to solve.

Such reckless behavior is, of course, at work in Iraq where the plan moves ahead and the people who implemented them stay in place no matter how different circumstances on the ground may be from what they actually assumed to begin with. The architects of the plan stay in place no matter the results. Full steam ahead. Critics are just unpatriotic or partisan or insane (Gore enjoyed that honor this week) or otherwise enemies of the state or freedom or whatever the GOP Attacking Point of the Week is.

And now let's bring it back home.

If you're having trouble following along (and I know there are a lot of Rightwingers who follow this blog) I'll type slowly, so pay attention:

I'm certain you've heard by now what a terrific job George W. Bush is doing to fight Terrorism because "there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11" (never mind the anthrax thing, we don't know who did it, so it doesn't count or something I guess, and there I go digressing again). I'm sure you've either hard someone selling you the line, or in the case of the Rightwingers, you've likely tried to sell it yourself on numerous occasions.

So George W. Bush is The Man for Us because he's kept the "homeland" safe from Terror. Okay, keep following...

Yesterday Ashcroft (apparently unbeknownst to Ridge, but let's not digress yet again) announced the latest Terror Threat that is supposed to scare the crap out of us!!!! He told us an attack is coming --- "90% ready" in fact --- and we should get prepared for it or look out for it or whatever the hell we're supposed to do about it.

Now, should this "spectacular attack" occur prior to the Elections, does anybody --- on any side of the political fence --- think for a second that such an attack wouldn't be the newest reason for why "we need to re-elect George W. Bush as President"? He will, no doubt, be then spun as "the tough man we need in these difficult times in wake of this horrible attack."

Got it?

He deserves to be re-elected because we haven't had an attack since 9/11. Unless we get attacked again. In which case, he deserves to be re-elected because we need him to keep us safe.

The GOP Win-Win Spin-Spin! Brought to you by the Freedom Loving GOP! A solution for every problem! It's simple, because it's the same solution for every problem!

It's easier to keep things straight that way anyway. And frankly, given the folks left that could possible think George W. Bush deserves re-election at this point, they better keep things nice and simple, Stupid.

Not enough SEX on this blog! So while I've been too busy of late to do as much blogging as I'd like, go read WaPo's article about a Blogging/Sex scandal in DC.

Then go read the actual DC Sex Blog!

Hopefully you'll be nice and relaxed by the time you get back, and I'll be back in the game with a bit more time...

It's particularly frustrating since there is so much to blog about at this very moment! It's almost impossible to keep up!...

...Just to name a few. Oh, well. Can't save the world all in one day. Go read and enjoy...