It's Friday night...kid's out with friends, hubby and I have a bottle of wine and the house to ourselves until midnight or so...

And besides all that, Dr Who is on at 8.

Decisions, decisions...

*grinz* Have a great weekend y'all, and have a good show Brad - I'll peek in for livestreaming and chat if I can remember.

Oh, man, something tells me I'm going to be walking, chewing gum, patting my head and rubbing my belly for the next few hours. I envy you your evening of mellowtude, KBE.

...more like swooshing fascism....

Hey guys! Thanks for hosting A99! Shall we cause trouble? It's fascism, you're favorite topic!

Give the fascists hell!

Naomi, What caused our lame congress to vote AGAINST the preservation of habeus corpus? Is it just the plain truth that ther IS NO OPPOSITION PARTY? I think so. We need to get real about the Constitution and call for Constitutional Restoration. If our Congress won't defend our freedoms, we the People must! We need a Citizen's Constitutional Congress. Is there any organized effort calling for a Constitutional Congress?

It's another fascist Day! I'd love to call in but I can't get through!!

They sure don't make it easy to find the stream at their website, but I finally have it now.

Wow, your confession re disbelief in the cries re fascism was a big relief!

While recovering from surgery a couple years ago, I found the then new HuffPo, and became sort of everyone's guilty pleasure for all my screams re fascism.... I wonder how many of those people are looking back to their condescension then and wishing they'd listened.... I hope they're seeing it by now anyway....

Hey, Agent BB2, glad you showed up! xoxox

Victorla,

Earlier today I had a thought - are the Dems actually doing more than we realize but the PNAC lapdog MSM just not telling us?

But then reality came crashing back just as quickly.

99,

Thanks for the invite.

I swear on all life of all times, I would die to insure we could prosecute them for treason.

Naomi mentioned surveillance, this article came out yesterday regarding the existing system in use in Chicago and where it is headed in the future:

link

OK, where'd my link go?

I put it in for you....

Where'd my democracy go?!

Here is the dirt of the 385 million of our taxpayer dollars going to the new American Gitmo. I source TruthOut.org to Business Wire...Victrola

http://www.truthout.org/...n/exec/view.cgi/48/17360

KBR Awarded US Department of Homeland Security Contingency
    Support Project for Emergency Support Services 
    Business Wire
    Friday 24 January 2006
    Arlingon, Va.- KBR announced today that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency. KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL).
    With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term, consisting of a one-year based period and four one-year options, the competitively awarded contract will be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District. KBR held the previous ICE contract from 2000 through 2005.
    "We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency operations support," said Bruce Stanski, executive vice president, KBR Government and Infrastructure. "We look forward to continuing the good work we have been doing to support our customer whenever and wherever we are needed."
    The contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs. The contingency support contract provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support tasks to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.
    The contract may also provide migrant detention support to other U.S. Government organizations in the event of an immigration emergency, as well as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency, such as a natural disaster. In the event of a natural disaster, the contractor could be tasked with providing housing for ICE personnel performing law enforcement functions in support of relief efforts.
    ICE is one of three agencies that make up the Border and Transportation Security (BTS) Directorate of the DHS. The mission of the BTS Directorate is to secure the nation's air, land and sea borders. ICE, the largest investigative arm of the DHS, is responsible for identifying and shutting down vulnerabilities in the nation's border, economic, transportation and infrastructure security.
    KBR is a global engineering, construction, technology and services company. Whether designing an LNG facility, serving as a defense industry contractor, or providing small capital construction, KBR delivers world-class service and performance. KBR employs more than 60,000 people in 43 countries around the world.
    Halliburton, founded in 1919, is one of the world's largest providers of products and services to the petroleum and energy industries. The company serves its customers with a broad range of products and services through its Energy Services Group and KBR. Visit the company's World Wide Web site at www.halliburton.com.

Thanks 99

Brad - it was sold to Haliburton and Blackwater

SEC. OF STATE BOWEN UP NEXT! SHE JUST CALLED IN!

Victorla,

in the event of an immigration emergency

What exactly is an immigration emergency?

Somehow, the way things are going, I suspect rather than people pouring in over the borders they will in fact be pouring out!

Another perspective on the coming fascist neocon wet dream for the United States. Again I source to Philadelphia Enquirer through TruthOut.org, Victrola

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060407J.shtml
What If Our Mercenaries Turn on Us?
    By Chris Hedges
    The Philadelphia Inquirer
    Sunday 03 June 2007
    Armed units from the private security firm Blackwater USA opened fire in Baghdad streets twice in two days last week. It triggered a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, a reminder that the war in Iraq may be remembered mostly in our history books for empowering and building America's first modern mercenary army.
    There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates run much higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition forces. When the number of private mercenary fighters is added to other civilian military "contractors" who carry out logistical support activities such as food preparation, the number rises to about 126,000.
    "We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense," said House defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D., Pa.). "How in the hell do you justify that?"
    The privatization of war hands an incentive to American corporations, many with tremendous political clout, to keep us mired down in Iraq. But even more disturbing is the steady rise of this modern Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome was a paramilitary force that defied legal constraints, made violence part of the political discourse, and eventually plunged the Roman Republic into tyranny and despotism. Despotic movements need paramilitary forces that operate outside the law, forces that sow fear among potential opponents, and are capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors. And in the wrong hands, a Blackwater could well become that force.
    American taxpayers have so far handed a staggering $4 billion to "armed security" companies in Iraq such as Blackwater, according to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.). Tens of billions more have been paid to companies that provide logistical support. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.) of the House Intelligence Committee estimates that 40 cents of every dollar spent on the occupation has gone to war contractors. It is unlikely that any of these corporations will push for an early withdrawal. The profits are too lucrative.
    Mercenary forces like Blackwater operate beyond civilian and military law. They are covered by a 2004 edict passed by American occupation authorities in Iraq that immunizes all civilian contractors in Iraq from prosecution.
    Blackwater, barely a decade old, has migrated from Iraq to set up operations in the United States and nine other countries. It trains Afghan security forces and has established a base a few miles from the Iranian border. The huge contracts from the war - including $750 million from the State Department since 2004 - have allowed Blackwater to amass a fleet of more than 20 aircraft, including helicopter gunships. Jeremy Scahill, the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, points out that Blackwater has also constructed "the world's largest private military facility - a 7,000-acre compound near the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina." Blackwater also recently opened a facility in Illinois ("Blackwater North") and, despite local opposition, is moving ahead with plans to build another huge training base near San Diego. The company recently announced it was creating a private intelligence branch called "Total Intelligence."
    Erik Prince, who founded and runs Blackwater, is a man who appears to have little time for the niceties of democracy. He has close ties with the radical Christian Right and the Bush White House. He champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is dishonest, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. But what he and his allies have built is a mercenary army, paid for with government money, which operates outside the law and without constitutional constraint.
    Mercenary units are a vital instrument in the hands of despotic movements. Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built rogue paramilitary forces. And the appearance of Blackwater fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, may be a grim taste of the future. In New Orleans Blackwater charged the government $240,000 a day.
    " 'It cannot happen here' is always wrong," the philosopher Karl Popper wrote. "A dictatorship can happen anywhere."
    The word contractor helps launder the fear and threat out of a more accurate term: "paramilitary force." We're not supposed to have such forces in the United States, but we now do. And if we have them, we have a potential threat to democracy. On U.S. soil, Blackwater so far has shown few signs of being an out-and-out rogue retainer army, though they looked the part in New Orleans. But were this country to become even a little less stable, outfits like Blackwater might see a heyday. If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown that triggers social unrest, or a series of environmental disasters, such paramilitary forces, protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and military, could ruthlessly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy. War, with the huge profits it hands to corporations, and to right-wing interests such as the Christian Right, could become a permanent condition. And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on the streets in New Orleans could appear on our streets.
    --------
    Chris Hedges (hedgesscoop@aol.com) is author, mostly recently, of American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. Hedges is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and won a Pulitzer Prize as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times.

Ike is rotating at about 600 rpm in his grave!

Which president are you more afraid of?

OURS!!!!!

Hands down.

Ahmadinejad has morals.

And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on the streets in New Orleans could appear on our streets.

Don't forget the ray guns!

That really should be pants wetting.... Sissies wet their pants. Bed wetting is usually physiologically caused.

Why has it taken so long for the compostable plastic grocery bags?

When I left Wisconsin in '76 they where just coming out with compostable plastic milk jugs. They broke down in the environment in about 3 months.

BUSH

Only it's a trick question - Bush isn't really the president!

Alright Victrola - I've got to check out your site later!
Looks like a fun place!

I have been trying to call in for an hour and a half! I am so happy everybody wants to talk. What scares me more than the fascists that are running things, are the people who do not believe this is happening and won't do anything if they did. People, wake up and smell the fascism!! DO SOMETHING!! Courage people, COURAGE. These hatemongers feed off of fear. Don't be afraid.

Rick Perlstein's piece is excellent. It's amazing the difference in the way Ike, Kennedy and even Nixon handled their adversaries with respect and gentility compared to Bush's disrespectful schoolyard bully treatment.

Lake swimming! Amoebae eating our brains! Teach us for drowning the polar bears.

I have a suggestion: Call you Congressman and ask him/her to take direct steps that will lead to the revocation of Blackwater's Corporate Charter. While you are on the phone ask them also to order all private contractors aqnd those who work for them swear an oath to the Constitution of United States of America—because right now THEY DON'T HAVE TO. LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENS because they don't.

I'm going to call and ask them to go jump in the lake!

Time to go home now, family is hungry.

Good bye Brad

Can't wait to hear your samples Victrola

Later 99

go jump in the lake!

How 'bout off a cliff!

Well, the amoebae in the brain part sounded good to me, but actually they already seem to have their brains eaten away... so... off a cliff, or go play in the freeway.... Whatever. Yes, later, BB2, and drive carefully.

Sorry you couldn't get through Victoria! Not sure what was going on!

Go buy her album Duhmocracy. It's right here and it's high-lariously brilliant.

Gotta get outta the studio guys! Thanks All!

I've written our Washington State Senators - hand-delivered - this little note:

What action will you take if the Administration launches a military attack on Iran?

Couldn't hurt if other states were heard from...

Italy: Fuck Them All… A report on Vaffanculo day!

I missed your show. I knew about it though from Peter B. Collins show, and I caught you from that end. PBC (dang makes me want a couple PBJ's)

anyway PBC did a lot of electronic voting machine discussion. I hope the message got out to the people that were listening.

It comes down to this,

Electronic Voting Machines (which count votes) can not be validated
Elections can be stolen without footprints or accountability, in a big way. Never before in history have so many votes been able to be exploited at one time.

The Solution

Hand Counted Paper Ballots with Public Oversight.

We need printers not expensive unreliable rigged calculators.

KEEP SPREADING THE WORD . WE THE PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP

Brad and CA Sec. of State Debra Bowen thanks a million times for all the continuous hard work and dedication on helping keep our voting rights honest!

i know, i know, enough with the praise, just send money...

Reagan on George W. Bush
This is a quote worth reading from the justRonald published REAGAN
DIARIES. The entry is dated May 17, 1986..

"A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son
around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the
political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here
all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost
40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The
New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or
something. That looks like easy work."

Brad, here are some videos I took on my digital camera at the Washington DC march & protest yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/p...s?user=maplespak&p=r

JoJ #43 -

Just so's ya know, that's a faked Reagan diary. Though it is amusing none the less

Bubs,

Here's video I took at the 9/29 Saturday Washington DC anti-war march/protest:

http://www.youtube.com/p...ser=maplespak&page=1

Photos:

http://s46.photobucket.c...m/albums/f143/maplespak/

And an article on Winter Patriot:

http://winterpatriot.blo...c-protest-september.html

Be the media! They didn't cover it, so I did!

GOP Rep. Kingston introduces House resolution "commending" Rush Limbaugh:

http://thinkprogress.org.../kingston-limbaugh-reid/

"Only on FOX", rightwing bloggers choose their favorite "people" (I use the term loosely):

http://www.crooksandliar...avorite-people/#comments

Limbaugh & Coulter = Laurel & Hardy