…All for a good cause, however.
So until further notice, consider this just a plain old open thread tonight.
Chat away. Though play nice, or I will pull this car over right now…
(P.S. Didja notice how the boys on the right are coming positively unhinged lately? Seems they’d be in a better mood with their man being re-coronated in a few days…but maybe that’s just me. Discuss.)
(Comments are now closed.)
(Comments are now closed.)
Got thoughts, complaints, suggestions, requests or problems with our new BRAD BLOG design? Please let me know via comments right here! Thanks! — Brad
Thanks to you, The BRAD BLOG has been trouble-making and muckraking for … 22 YEARS!!!
Please help The BRAD BLOG, BradCast and Green News Report remain independent and 100% reader and listener supported in our 23rd YEAR!!!
THE BRADCAST on KPFK/Pacifica Radio Network (90.7FM Los Angeles, 98.7FM Santa Barbara, 93.7FM N. San Diego and nationally on many other affiliate stations! ALSO VIA PODCAST: RSS/XML feed | Pandora | TuneIn | Apple Podcasts/iTunes | iHeart | Amazon Music
GREEN NEWS REPORT, nationally syndicated, with new episodes on Tuesday and Thursday. ALSO VIA PODCAST: RSS/XML feed | Pandora | TuneIn | Apple Podcasts/iTunes | iHeart | Amazon Music
LOL, Brad. We’ve been treating every thread as an open thread lately.
My thoughts exactly, Brad, about the unhappiness of the boys on the right. Wonder why.
Is anyone at all really happy about this?
Methinks there is a definite joy deficit.
Downright tragic.
WP..open threads….democracy…..freedom….
anarchy…..liberation…. REVOLUTION!!!!!!!
We stay on topic enough. The mind is a vast universe and we don’t want to keep it in chains.One thing always leads to another.
Hail to Barbara Boxer for giving Mrs. Condoleeza Bush a tough grilling. I wish she could have done the same for Mr. Alberto (I love gay orgies) Gonzalez.
Similar reaction as Horkus to Barbara Boxer’s questions to Condoleeza Rice. Hooray, Barbara! We Americans, our kids fighting over there, and the Iraqi people deserve some honest answers. The tragic thing is, I know the current adm. and all its drones don’t have any…
Keep the faith!
Thank you Brad! Folks, this one is an educative one
"The 34 Scandals of George W. Bush"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011905D.shtml
Open threads, lovely. May they never fray. Brad, I hope you’re doing something really DAMAGING. I’ll be mightily disappointed if you aren’t.
Hi, Toni, Horkus, Teresa and Winter Patriot. Good friends in a good cause. And good night. 😉
Sweet dreams, Peg.
OK. Reality. I can face it.
We have a madman as a President, a cabinet full of witches and spooks, of the evil kind, a Congress full of cowards, and a traumatized and paralyzed populace.
Our leaders love to torture. They seem to think it’s a sport like some cricket match.
In and around torture comes murderous ecstasy in foreign temples.
In between murders come robbery and demolition of all the common people’s treasures and future security, while they are promising to protect us from invasions of the body snatchers.
They absolutely adore freedom.
They throw the best parties known to man with the stolen loot.
They love little dogs. And God is a close relative and will probably be attending the gala.
Goddamned reality!
Republicans have gained, by hook or by crook, enough majority in the Congress to amend the United States Constitution every week if they want to. Topping the Bush agenda is an amendment to define marriage so that it will reflect our nation’s Biblical values, doncha know. Thanks to friends Indira and Tom, here are some Bible verses to remind us what that will mean:
A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Genesis 29: 17-28; II Samuel 3: 2-5)
B. Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines, in addition to his wife or wives. (II Samuel 5: 13; I Kings 11: 3; II Chronicles 11: 21)
C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife turns out not to be a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deuteronomy 22: 13-21)
D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Genesis 24: 3; Numbers 25: 1-9; Ezra 9: 12; Nehemiah 10: 30)
E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deuteronomy 22: 19; Mark 10: 9)
F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe. (Genesis 38: 6-10; Deuteronomy 25: 5-10)
Open thread? They’ll be demanding freedom of speach next! 😉
Couple of interesting links from the BBC web site today.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4185205.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4181799.stm
Keep the faith!
PS. Cricket is not like torture – unless you play the Aussies and lose that is… 😉
LOL, Da Wookie.
I’ll echo that. The extreme right is growing uneasy. It’s beginning to percolate into the minds of even the most ardent Bush supporter that *something is badly wrong*. From the sudden push against Social Security (the traditional "third rail" of American politics) to the disaster in Iraq, elements of the Right are starting to wonder if in their haste to defeat the Left they didn’t give Bush *too much power*.
Their internal state today is not the serenity and confidence that goes with power combined with moral rectitude. There’s a turmoil and a hysteria building. This is the party that favored small government – and now one party with a heavy centralized agenda rules all three branches… and *they* were the ones that gave it to them.
Oh yes. Expect worse treatment from them as their doubts grow. You’ve *really* done a bad thing – you were right where they were wrong.
Very encouraging words, Jimmo NAH.
Rice said today there were six more countries that we needed to bring freedom to. That’a sound a bit hysterical to me.
After watching Senator Feinstein introduce Condisleazy Rice I figured she was going to skate around the truth about her actions as National Security Advisor. Thanks to Senator Boxer that didn’t happen. At least we have one Senator who is a fighter.
Any confirmation hearing for a Bush nominee who has been promoted from within is going to sound essentially the same. Condi Rice is no different from Gonzales in this respect.
George W. Bush can’t stand dissent in the ranks, not even principled disagreement. That’s why O’Neill and Powell are gone. Bush is so insecure that he has to surround himself with sycophants. His own lies become theirs.
Rice is willing to fudge the truth and contradict herself in order to please the boss. That’s what this is all about. In her mind, she works only for him, even though we pay her salary through our taxes. She’ll sit there all day, defending her honor and saying she didn’t mean what she said when she said it, knowing Bush will reward her for her loyalty.
If the right wing seems insecure at this point, it’s because they’re running out of targets to fire at. Kerry has rendered himself irrelevant by not walking the talk on the crooked election. Michael Moore is between films. Dan Rather is retiring.
The body count builds and the lies go on. Now even Republicans are questioning the administration’s candor. They have met the enemy…and it’s them.
Perhaps they’ve all read William Langwiesche’s piece in the new issue of Atlantic, about the situation in Iraq. He’s an impeccable journalist, and what he describes is SO different than the official line that even I, who don’t believe anything the government says, was stunned. BTW, has anyone else caught the news about the captured "third leader" of Saddam’s post-invasion "Army of Mohammed?" He claims that Iraq and Syria have been financing the insurgency. Is this more evidence manufactured by the Administration to justify conquering those countries as well? –Stan
Pardon me! That’s IRAN and Syria!
Mebbe we should get the Miranda rights brought up to date and made honest – imagine hearing this if you got arrested:
"You do not have the right to vote and even if you did, we wouldn’t have to count it if it didn’t suit us.
You have the right to any President that you like as long as it’s George W. Bush.
We have the right to select the regimes in any part of the world whatever, ‘coz we’re a christian nation and we have dominion over all peoples whether they like or not.
The corporations can do whatever they like, wherever they like to whoever they like and because of tort reform, they won’t have to pay up if they get caught.
Have a nice day."
To ponder upon…
The Bush Rule of Journalism
Is anyone else going to the Counter Inaugural?
Email me.
Email is donotconcede2@comcast.net
Morning everyone,
Here’s an interesting article by Kurt Nimmo (I think he’s a photographer). I don’t understand why the "others" can’t see this point of view.
http://www.informationclearingh...rticle7742.htm
Also:
Condasleaza Rice during confirmation hearings, "the world is coming together behind the idea that we have to succeed in Iraq."
Where’d she get that????
Open and free elections?
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0118-32.htm
Ponder on this:
{Ed: the long article copied here has been removed. You may quote a paragraph or two of any article. You may post a URL or a link to anything. But you may not copy long articles here in their entirety. Ponder on THAT!}
Any comments yet on the report in the media this morning from the firms that conducted the Exit Polls?
Once again, they’re saying that Kerry voters were for some reason over-represented in their sample. Once again, they appear to be offering no logical explanation for why this occurred.
Are we to believe that Bush voters, who attended huge stadium rallies and chanted "flip flop flip flop" like a bunch of Nazis, were somehow reluctant to tell pollsters that they had just cast their votes for Bush? Remember, these are the folks who believe they have the moral highground on everything. They couldn’t be prouder of being Republicans. Yet, they were shy on election day?
Once again, the media is buying it hook, line and sinker. CNN even went so far as to say that they had not published the exit poll data on their web site, when in fact we have all, by now, seen the freeze frames of that data, which showed Kerry winning in key states.
What gives?
Hi Lewis. What gives is that it’s not that the media is buying it , it’s that their selling it because they are part of the machine , the biggest part I think, that keeps the "masses" in line.
Peace
And to Peg C……
My condolences on the passing of your Aunt. I hope you have peace in your life today and every day.
Comment #9 Jazzolog
Wow! You can copy and paste!
Well, Jazzolog, you probably don’t really know much about the Bible and you probably don’t believe in God so I am not sure why you copied and pasted these verses from the "internet by an unknown source."
You forgot that Moses allowed divorce because of the hardness of man’s heart. Jesus spoke about this and went onto say, that from the beginning, marriage was supposed to be for life and between one man and one woman. That was the way it was supposed to be, however, we are allowed to divorce for certain reasons – adultery being the main one. But God intended marriage to be for life "in the beginning" and between one man and one woman only.
Just because men had multiple wives/concubines in the Old Testament does not mean that God approved of it. He did allow it to happen. He allowed slavery to exist but that does not mean that he approved of it. Men do have free will. We still have slaves today around the world. We are all still slaves to sin because we live in a fallen world. That is why bad things happen to good and baf people.
Here are the rest of the verses in Mark chapter 10, the ones you left out (E), the one you took out of context:
3. He [Jesus] answered, “What did Moses command you?”
4. They said, “Moses allowed a certificate of divorce to be written, and to divorce her.”
5. But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment.
6. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.
7. For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife,
8. and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.
9. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
Lewis –
Are you really surprised? I knew what they’d say before they said it. Their corporate subsidies depend upon following the Bushco line. On Nov. 2,
CNN still reported an almost-reasonable facsimile of the "news." On the afternoon of Nov. 3, all resemblance to "reporting" of actual facts disappeared – for good, or at least until November, 2008.
God, this country terrifies me.
Condi got confirmed, but Boxer and Kerry (yes KERRY!) went on record with a NAY vote.
All this talk about Bilary running in 2008? I can think of a lady from Califooornia who may be a better choice. May I be the first to say:
Barbara Boxer for President in 2008!!
Sorry Kerry. Too little, too late.
Blue Lemur http://www.bluelemur.com reports that Cons growing a set and may go against Smirky’s absurd SS plan. This is fine news and had my 70 year old mother feeling much better.
Smirky has worst approval rating of any president in like a zillion years and yet, we’re still expected to believe a) that he actually won and b) he has a mandate. How dumb do I look?
Dare I be optimistic and suggest that the tide is turning? It does beg the question though, what shock and awe will the Cons pull in order to whip the sheeple back in line?
How about this:
Noticed a lot of anti-Muslim stories on main stream media last night. Richard Clark predicted that internment for Muslim Americans is a real possibility. Beware of propaganda against your neighbors. Cons just stirring up fear and hatred to control the masses. Don’t be tricked. If you see it on NBC, it’s probably NOT TRUE!
My wish for the new year: Feeney doing the perp walk. A long shot I know, but a girl can dream , right?
Can’t wait to see what Brad’s working on.
See ya later.
Supersoling –
I was posting #29 while you were doing #27. We somehow skipped #28, wherever it went.
Thanks for your kind remarks. She was 84, had had a stroke and had been pretty miserable for the last three years, partially asphasic (she’d been a writer) and wheel-chair bound. So it’s really a blessing for her; but we’ll miss her.
Republicans>>> "The Masters of Spin"
Creators of Convoluted Logic ….lies, deceit and deception to win voters.
G.
Peg C
Please accept my condolences, and my best wishes for you and your family.
Anyone want to see Rumsfeld replaced? go to john kerry.com and sign the petition
Thank you, Winter Patriot.
Peace
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it….
MLK Jr.
G
Nana –
John Kerry e-mailed me here, so I signed it last night. For what it’s worth. :-\
Can you believe this????? FYI——
——————————————————————–
Wednesday 19th January 2005 (12h04) :
Bush’s Choice for Energy Secretary Was One of Texas’ Top Five Worst Polluters
2 comment(s).
By Jason Leopold
In the bizarro world that President Bush lives in, it pays-literally-to be a miserable failure, a criminal and a corporate con man. Those are just some of the characteristics of the dastardly men and women who were tapped recently to fill the vacancies in Bush’s second-term cabinet.
But one of the President’s most outrageous decisions (besides naming Alberto Gonzales, who concocted a legal case for torturing foreign prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Attorney General) has got to be choosing 66 year-old Sam Bodman to serve as Secretary of Energy. This is a guy who for a dozen years ran a Texas-based chemical company that spent years on the top five lists of the country’s worst polluters.
It’s not just a few clouds of smoke emanating from an oil refinery or a power plant that got Bodman’s old company, Boston-based Cabot Corporation, those accolades. It was the 54,000 tons of toxic emissions that his company’s refineries released into the air in the Lone Star state in 1997 alone that made Cabot the fourth largest source of toxic emissions in Texas. Cabot is the world’s largest producer of industrial carbon black, a byproduct of the oil refinery process.
In 2000, the year Bodman left Cabot to join the Bush administration as Deputy Commerce Secretary, Cabot accounted for 60,000 of the more than half-a-million tons of toxic emissions released into the Texas air, according to report by the Texas State Summary of Emissions.
A loophole created in the 1972 Texas Clean Air Act exempted or “grandfathered” industrial plants built before 1971 from new, stricter pollution control rules. But in the mid-1990s companies such as Cabot were supposed to curb the pollution coming from its refineries. Environmentalists demanded that then Gov. Bush rein in the polluters and close the so-called grandfather loophole as the air in Texas became smoggier.
Instead, in 1997, then Gov. Bush asked two oil company executives to outline a voluntary program that allowed the grandfathered polluters to decide on their own exactly how much to cut the pollution at their plants. The oil execs summoned a meeting of two dozen industry reps at Exxon offices in Houston and presented them with the program.
In a memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, one executive wrote that "clearly the insiders from oil and gas believe that the Governor’s office will ’persuade’ the (Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission) to accept what program is developed between the industry group and the Governor’s Office."
“And they did. And two years later this joke of a program was enacted into law by a bill written by the general counsel for the Texas Chemical Council who also lobbies for energy and utility companies. The bill was denounced by newspapers across the state,” according to a March 5, 2000 report in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
According to people familiar with the legislation, Sam Bodman was part of the original working group that drafted legislation that then Gov. Bush signed into law that basically permitted Cabot and other companies to continue to emit the same level-and in some cases more-toxic emissions as they had been years earlier without so much as receiving a slap-on-the-wrist by then Gov. Bush.
Bodman personally contributed $1,000 to Bush’s presidential campaign and $20,000 to Republican committees in the 1999-2000 election. Bodman is the wealthiest member of the Bush administration. His net worth is estimated to be between $42 million and $164 million, the bulk of it in Cabot stock, deferred compensation and other benefits.
Bodman shoddy environmental record aside, he may also be complicit in one of Africa’s deadliest wars.
In October 2002, Bodman’s former company came under fire when a United Nations Panel of Experts produced a report accusing the company, along with several other US corporations, of helping to fuel the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) while he ran Cabot by purchasing coltan from Congo during the conflict and illegally plundering the country’s vast natural resources.
I have not seen things to indicate unrest on the right side. I hope that the right does wake up to what is happening. I feel a bit encouraged to hear it may be starting to happen. Please provide examples of what you are hearing.
I think it’s time to bring back body counts – sort of helps one adopt points of accountability
The Republican Party is doing just fine. The Democrats seem to be the ones with the in-fighting, emploding, no positive agenda, just complaining about everything, etc., etc., etc.
The "dumbest" and most hated president in history (besides Lincoln and the South), may just destroy the Democrat Party as we know it!!!
Paul, your opinion means nothing to me. I never read what you have to say.
Awwww … they’re just a big ol’ pack o’ Poor Winners. That’s all. No accounting for it … they’ll be happier if (when?) the field expands to include Iran. Yuck.
Anyone see the chocolate cowboy boots they’re serving up for the inauguration? Another ill spent $40 million down the drain. :angry:
Attention, all lovers of purple prose, especially when you agree with it:
Just in case you missed this essay on tomorrow’s coronation by Manuel Valanzuela, go here and *steam* along with him!
http://www.informationclearingh...rticle7761.htm
It’s time to HO-O-O-OWL!
Peg C, I’m sorry to hear about your aunt. It’s hard to lose them even if it’s for the best. My grandma died nearly 4 years ago and I still miss her everyday.
To those who are comfortable with the concept of fraudulent election results instituting a regime that can then not be removed peacefully:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me–
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
When you have been incarcerated because you weren’t sufficiently venomous at the two minutes hate, or your crucifix isn’t quite big enough or merely that the corporations think you haven’t bought enough of their crap this month, PONDER THIS.
When the government is not constrained by the rule of law, you are living in a dictatorship and the evidence for this is growing day by day.
To everyone else, Keep the faith!
Hi, G #38 – Bush is stacking the deck at the top. But it is much harder to stack the bottom. People only care about what is happening in their town or city, or what is affecting them personally. Activism must start at the bottom, where you live. Surely, towns and states still have rights, and do not have to toe the line in every instance with the federal government. And states should align against the federal government, if necessary. DUMYA’s fool plans seem to indicate an attack on Iran and/or Syria soon. That means the draft. What is needed is a grassroots blocking of the drafting of state citizens for DUMYA’s suicidal rampage abroad. Not just demonstrations – DUMYA could care less about demonstrations. You need to hit the law books. You need to round up over-whelming support of the people against a DUMYA draft. You need to take back control and overturn any decisions by local governments that adversely affect the people in every particular locale. You need to bring back American troops from Iraq and start prosecuting the criminals for war crimes against AMERICA and IRAQ. You need a "recall clause".
> Paul, your opinion means nothing to me. I never read what you have to say.
Dear Miss Jen, if you never read it, how does it mean nothing to you?
Oh dear time to educate again…
Paul:
mean1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mn)
v. meant, (mnt) mean·ing, means
v. tr.
To be used to convey; denote: “‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things’” (Lewis Carroll).
If she doesn’t read your comment (as I suspect many of us didn’t), you have not conveyed anything to her, therefore it doesn’t have any meaning for her.
There, that wasn’t tricky, now was it?
Paul…what exactly is your purpose here???
Obvious you are not changing any of our minds…so what exactly is your motive…just to piss everyone off and keep us "unfocused" or "off point"……is that what you freepers do all day? Don’t you have a job or something…get lost…no one gives a damn what you or jimboy have to say, ok? So, get over it and move on!
Just a quick note before I go –
Just saw a news show about how there are anti-aircraft missle launchers positioned around the coronation site.
W sure is showing us how much safer he must feel now that we have occupied Iraq – the new terror capital of the world!
Wait isn’t that terror capital Washington D.C.?
Let me think about that a minute!
Watch out for that dirty bomb in Boston folks! :O
#48 Peggy-
Good point…. Thanks for the info and guidance.
Day before yesterday …. US Government news release on AP,FT, UPI or Reuters etc. indicated "Help Wanted" ad for over 2700 people to setup local draft boards. They are hiring the core Selective Service DB employees "just in case"?????
.
G.
#45 Peg C.
Manuel Valanzuela also wrote another article…. "Worker Bees and Soldier Ants: America’s Army of Fascism"
I found it over on the "Bellaciao.org" web site couple of days back.
Long, scary, colorful piece but very, very true…. fine article.
G.
Hi, G – Thanks for the referral to bellaciao.org. Found an article Jan 15/05 – letter to DUMYA from Sgt. Benderman, refusing to do another tour of duty in Iraq to fight for oil fields. He says 75% of the soldiers feel like he does about the war in Iraq. He has sworn to protect America from foreign and domestic threats, and he considers DUMYA to be a domestic threat. Isn’t that great news? There is also an interesting interview with Greg Palast about the elections and about Iraq.
I just found this old article from the Observer (which is the sunday edition of the Gaurdian, a broadsheet newspaper here in to UK). I may be telling you guys what you already know, I have no idea if this made it into the MSM over, but soemhow I doubt it. Let’s see the trolls justify this…
PS. If you can’t get to the link I can post the text of the article, but the press over here don’t do such a good job of sweepinbg Dubya’s indescretions under the carpet, so the article is still there. See, this is how the press is supposed to work in the free world 😉
Keep the faith!
PPS. Brad, your dedication continues to inspire me – vive le révolution de velours!
Peg C,
My aunts and uncles were/are my favorite people on earth. They sang to me and made me laugh. Lots of good memories.
Looks like good writing runs in your family.
I wish your beloved aunt a great journey.
…T-Rod said on 1/19/2005 @ 2:04pm PT…
"Paul…what exactly is your purpose here???
Obviously you are not changing any of our minds…so what exactly is your motive…just to piss everyone off and keep us "unfocused" or "off point?"……
T-Rod………now you’ve GOT IT!
Follow his lead, the rest of you!