
[Via @LuddLite, hat-tips @OTOOLEFAN & @ShannynMoore]
  w/ Brad & Desi
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  w/ Brad & Desi
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BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
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VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
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'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
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GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...
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![]() | MORE BRAD BLOG 'SPECIAL COVERAGE' PAGES... |
[Via @LuddLite, hat-tips @OTOOLEFAN & @ShannynMoore]
Guest blogged by John Atlas
Will Chris Christie, New Jersey's tough Republican Governor and rising GOP star, be the next president of the United States? That prospect is much less likely if the accusations of Yvonne Smith Segars, the head of New Jersey's Office of the Public Defender, turn out to be accurate.
In a scathing letter [PDF] sent to the Governor on Monday, she charged Christie with having "violated New Jersey law as well as the State and Federal Constitutions," in his efforts to remove her from her post, and by interfering with the operation of her office. In the letter, Segars threatened to sue him for eroding the constitutional rights of indigent clients. She says he's actively undermining the work of the state's public defenders by "obstructing...management decisions and by impeding the filling of constitutionally mandated positions."
Segars accused Christie of "bullying tactics" in an effort to remove her from office. The tactics, according to NJ's chief Public Defender, included "veiled threats", "pressure to resign", "interference with [the] agency's operations" by thwarting approved promotions, and ordering her press officer to report to the Governor, instead of to her.
Segars adds that she "now fear[s] being physically removed from my office."
If the accusations are true, this and other unpopular actions could well serve to help unravel future political ambitions for Christie, who is regarded as a rising star among the "Tea Party" and right-wing base of the Republican party.
In a blistering email statement, Segars' attorney charged Christie is "tamper[ing] with the independence of the judiciary and now with the independence of the Public Defender" in what amounts to an "illegal and unconstitutional" "power grab" meriting impeachment by the state legislature...
TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Deadly earthquake in New Zealand; Aging dams at risk in the U.S.; 50 million environmental refugees by 2020, and other cheerful news from America's scientists ... PLUS: The WI gov's attack on labor and renewable energy, brought to you by the Billionaire Koch Brothers ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Oil prices rise on Libya unrest; Foodies can save the green movement; Dead baby dolphins washing up along Gulf Coast; 153M gallons of sewage overwhelming dump in SC; Futurist Kurzweil not worried about climate change; Chicago coal-power co. delays pollution upgrades; China to blow doors off US elec. car market; Shocking decline in large fish; How we know recent global warming is not natural; China Readies $1 Billion for Drought Aid; US may open Grand Canyon to uranium mining ... PLUS: Are Girl Scout cookies killing orangutans? ...
Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
"The United States, so far, is essentially following the usual playbook...[for] when some favored dictator...is in danger of losing control. There’s a kind of a standard routine --- Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu...Suharto: keep supporting them as long as possible; then, when it becomes unsustainable --- typically, say, if the army shifts sides --- switch 180 degrees, claim to have been on the side of the people all along, erase the past, and then make whatever moves are possible to restore the old system under new names."-Noam Chomsky, 2/2/11
If we have learned anything from WikiLeaks, it's that we must consider the words emerging from the mouths of our political elites as the equivalent to a magician's sleight-of-hand.
During the transition between the Bush and Obama administrations, an astute observer could gain far greater insight on the direction of the new administration by ignoring the then President-elect's lofty rhetoric and focusing instead upon the fact that he chose the Wall Street-connected Larwrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, as opposed to Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, to serve as his chief financial advisers.
Today, Egypt remains in the midst of a genuine, yet to be completed, democratic revolution. So far, it has produced the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak and a dissolution of Egypt's parliament. However, it has not, as yet, led to real "regime change". Mubarak's hand-picked cabinet remains. So does Vice President Omar Suleiman, whom a May 14, 2007 U.S. Diplomatic cable referred to as "Mubarak's consigliere," and whom Middle East expert Lisa Hajjar refers to as "Egypt's Torturer-in-Chief".
[Listen to Brad Friedman's interview with Hajjar in the first hour of the 2/10/11 Mike Malloy Show right here.]
Egypt and the world --- and, indeed, the several other Middle Eastern nation's now seeing similar popular uprisings --- would do well to ignore public remarks by the U.S. President and Secretary of State to the effect that they supported the democratic aspirations of the Egyptian demonstrators and an end to the Mubarak presidency. While their public condemnations of violence against the press and the Egyptian people were appropriate, their reported behind-the-scene effort to have Suleiman lead a "so-called" transitional government speaks volumes.
To understand not only the why of Egypt's democratic revolution --- and many other similar popular revolts now under way in that part of the world --- but also the U.S. response to it, one must understand both the history of an ostensibly benevolent but quietly brutal U.S.-led corporate Empire and the role played by the covert dimension of Empire, particularly as described in Part IV of The BRAD BLOG's five-part 2009 special series on "The History of CIA Torture."* Suleiman, it must be remembered, long served as the chief of Egypt's General Intelligence Service, where he served as the key point man for the U.S., in what what we've described as "surrogate torture" as well as extraordinary rendition...
Sad to say the best video coverage so far (though that's not saying much as I noted Friday night), of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plot to dishonestly, and perhaps illegally, try and discredit, smear and illicitly undermine their perceived political enemies (such as me and, for some reason, my family) comes from HNN. That's right, from the Hacker News Network.
The report on the U.S. Chamber plot (and the related BofA/WikiLeaks plot) is the very first story --- approximately 5 mins --- right at the top of the video...
See? Was that so hard? [Hat-tip Jeannie Dean.]
UPDATE 3:55pm PT: GRITtv also covered the story in an in-depth discussion with ThinkProgress' Lee Fang and Firedoglake's Michael Whitney last Wednesday...
Previously related at The BRAD BLOG:
2/15/11:
Special Green News Report on the U.S. Chamber Plot
2/14/11: Late Updates on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Plot to Target, Discredit, Defraud Political Enemies
It's strange, difficult and a bit uncomfortable reporting on the $12 million U.S. Chamber disinfo plot and smear campaign after finding myself (and my family), much less VelvetRevolution.us (VR), the non-profit organization co-founded by The BRAD BLOG, as direct targets of it. As you might have assumed, there is much going on behind the scenes that I can't report on at this time, but I've been happy to see some fairly decent coverage --- even by some in the print MSM, if not much in the broadcast media yet --- of this important, disturbing and still developing story.
It's easier to talk and opine on what I've learned about the plot, as I've been doing in a lot of media interviews over the past week (a few of those radio appearances are linked below), than it is to actually report on it, per se. Yet, there have been several noteworthy points and advancements in the story over the past week since I originally covered it in depth here on Monday.
New information being dug up over the last several days, since I initially reported on this story in depth at the beginning of the week, now indicates that the Chamber Plotters had likely intended to use cyber attacks and hacks against us as well.
Those key updates, and the very quickest of backgrounders for those unfamiliar with the sordid tale up until now, follow below...
Dear TeaBaggers: Wondering what a real 'tea party', really fighting for real rights really being taken away by Big Government looks like? It looks like this...
If you're ready to join such a fight, we're quite certain there are tens of thousands of freedom-loving Americans now rallying in Madison, Wisconsin this week who would welcome you in that fight.
For those just joining this extraordinary story in Madison (which also seems to be spreading to other states, like Ohio, where their new Republican governor is also attempting to legislate away the freedom for citizens to collectively bargain with their employers), MSNBC's Ed Schultz, who was on the ground in WI yesterday, has offered the most comprehensive coverage from the start of the still-growing fight for the rights of teachers, fire-fighters and other public employees to collectively bargain for themselves.
But it was Rachel Maddow who may have put things in the best perspective last night, as she offered a persuasive case as to how the purported claims of new Republican Gov. Scott Walker, and the new Republican majority in the state legislature, weren't really about responding to a "budget crisis" --- one that appears to have been "manufactured" by them, in fact --- but rather, a brazen attempt to break the backs of Democrats, via the unions which often support them, prior to the upcoming 2012 election.
"What's happening in Wisconsin right now is not about a budget. This is about elections. This about the Republican Party going after the institutions that make it possible for Democrats to win elections in America," said Maddow in her report last night (video posted below).
What's happening in Wisconsin right now is about Republicans versus Democrats. It's about elections. We saw the same thing with ACORN. Remember the Rightwing jihad against ACORN? What did ACORN do to earn that?," she asked before answering her own question. "Well, ACORN for years registered huge numbers of minority voters and poor voters. Minority voters and poor voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic when they vote.
"There were not any real problems with the way ACORN registered people. This whole 'ACORN voter fraud epidemic' was essentially made up out of whole cloth. The only problem with ACORN and its voter registration program is that they were really good at it! And that helped Democrats," she argued.
"ACORN was not a Democratic organization, but ACORN's work was very politically beneficial to the Democratic Party and so therefore the Right decided that ACORN had to be destroyed."
Unions, she then went on to argue, who are similarly not Democratic organizations, but whose well organized, often well funded work tends to help Democrats in elections and --- especially, since Citizens United --- now remain largely the only thing between Republicans with their enormous corporate benefactors and the chances for Democrats to win elections anywhere.
"The only institutions of any size, with any heft at all on the liberal side, are the unions. So, of course, they too, must be destroyed."
"If you break the public-sector unions in Wisconsin, then you can break them anywhere. And if you break them everywhere, then it is 'Bake sales versus Billionaires' for not only this next election, but for every election here on out. Republicans run the table. Bake sales on one side, billionaires on the other. That's it."
Maddow's seminal report on "The Survival of the Democratic Party", follows below...
We've interviewed former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern, on the air and off, many times over the years. We've come to consider him not just a source, but a friend and a national hero for his tirelessly non-partisan fight for truth and justice.
The man who once briefed Presidents directly, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton, had long ago earned our great respect --- from his courageousness in famously confronting then-SecDef Don Rumsfeld in 2006 about lying about Saddam and WMD (watch the classic confrontation on video here) to his calling out CNN on air for their abysmal failures in accurately reporting on WikiLeaks (video here) last December to his arrest weeks later at the White House with other vets and national heroes for "refusal to obey a lawful order" while protesting against the Obama Administration's wars around the world --- all while overcoming some enormous personal health issues at the same time.
So it's little wonder that FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), found herself "way too upset to write a coherent piece" yesterday after hearing of the news that the 71-year old McGovern had been "brutalized and left bleeding" by security guards after daring to stand in silent protest during a speech by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton --- on "the rights of individuals to express their views freely"(!) --- at George Washington University on Tuesday.
Clinton didn't even blink as the 27-year CIA veteran was dragged out of the room from where he was standing silently, back towards her, during her speech, some 15 feet in front of her as RAW STORY reports and as the video below suggests --- or even as he finally shouted: "So this is America!"...
TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Heavier storms now definitely linked to climate change... But one MT legislator says "Bring it on"; Score one for the whales; PLUS: Oil subsidies, shmoil-shmubsidies --- Republicans vs. Obama's budget and Big Bird vs. Big Oil ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Rising seas forecast to flood US coasts by 2100; Public trusts EPA, tells Congress butt out; Study: Trillions in investment at risk from climate change; Coal's hidden costs: $345 Billion; Oil cos. unveil spill containment system; Huge solar flare jams radio, satellite signals; UN sounds alarm on ocean pollution; Screwdriver blamed for nuclear plant shutdown; UK's Cameron abandons forest sell-off plan; Apple admits child labor, poisoned factory workers; 3 states challenge feds on nuclear waste; Teen makes homemade solar death ray ... PLUS: 2/3rds of permafrost gone by 2200: study ...
[I'll have a few assorted updates and follow-ups in the U.S. Chamber Plot debacle soon, but there have been a few items of note that I didn't want to lose here entirely. This is one of them. - BF | UPDATE: I've now added an addendum to the bottom of this article.]
If there's anything we've learned over the recent decade, it's that if you're a Republican, or if you're among the favored corporate elite of any party in this nation for that matter --- as highlighted yet again by the U.S. Chamber's planned $12 million hit-job on U.S. citizens (including yours truly and family) and other progressive journalists and organizations --- there are a completely different set of laws that apply to you. Namely, very few of our laws actually apply to you at all. Feel free to break them with impunity!
Nonetheless, over the past week, there have been what we might call a "spate", comparatively, of Republicans actually being held accountable with prison sentences, albeit very small ones. These come on the heels of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-Corruptionville)'s conviction last November on all counts in a corporate money laundering conspiracy in TX used to get GOP candidates elected in TX, and subsequently change the balance of power in the U.S. House. (He is currently appealing, naturally). But it's nice to see some, if very few, of these charlatans, for a change, not get off completely scot-free. Here are three cases, including yet another case of a Republican working to keep American citizens from casting their legal vote in an election...
Guest blogged by Ron Brynaert
America's longtime economic and diplomatic support for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his despotic government has dominated news reports the last few weeks, but the US media has practically ignored stunning news regarding another former ally in the global war on terror.
"A Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for ousted military leader Pervez Musharraf on Saturday over allegations he played a role in the 2007 assassination of an ex-prime minister and rival," the Associated Press reported over the weekend, although no major US newspaper seems to have followed up. "It was a major setback for the onetime U.S. ally, who was plotting a political comeback from outside the country."
Musharraf "seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999" and resigned in 2008 after impeachment charges were finalized against him by the newly elected government. After returning from self-imposed exile, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated at a campaign rally on December 27, 2007.
But with an arrest warrant now issued for Musharraf --- a very close partner for much of the last decade in the U.S. "War on Terror" --- involving the assassination of a former Prime Minister, the U.S. corporate media has been curiously quiet, or otherwise extraordinarily sympathetic to Pakistan's former dictator...
TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
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IN TODAY'S SPECIAL RADIO REPORT: All-out Info War: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest & most powerful corporate lobbying firm, caught plotting a $12 million disinformation campaign against progressive U.S. organizations, journalists and citizens, including yours truly...
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): EXTENDED (non-Chamber-related) EXTRA!:... Obama budget, GOP's draconian cuts; Judge fines Chevron $8 Billion for Ecuador pollution; Strip-mining to begin on sea floor; Actor Costner sued over Gulf oil invention; World approaching "peak phosphorous"?; Alaska warming at 3x rate of Lower 48; Natural gas surge in BP spill; KY protestors sit-in at gov's office against mountaintop removal mining; GE pays handsomely for stake in oil business; EU Carbon trading system plagued by fraud; Smog continues to plague Joshua Tree NP; Insurers warn premiums set to rise for natural disasters; Solar panels can help your home sell faster; Generation HOT: Calling out "climate cranks"; Pesticide co. hires federal agency to challenge pesticide-Parkinson's link ... PLUS: The worst eco-disasters of all time! ...
A few quick followups tonight to my lengthy story from this morning on the proposed $2 million per month plot created for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to use tools and techniques from the so-called "War on Terror" against U.S. citizens, journalists and groups who opposed their strong-arm lobbying tactics.
As noted, one of those they'd planned to target in hopes of discrediting in their nefarious scheme was yours truly, as well as my family, and VelvetRevolution.us, the non-profit, non-partisan organization co-founded by The BRAD BLOG. I was specifically targeted personally as the Chamber's first, "Tier 1" opponent in a Power Point presentation prepared for the nation's largest corporate lobby's law firm Hunton & Williams (H&W) by the three cyber-security/intelligence firms, HBGary Federal, Berico Technologies & Palantir Technologies. The triumvirate called themselves "Team Themis" in the plots developed for the U.S. Chamber to fraudulently discredit opponents and for a very similar scheme made for Bank of America to try and disrupt WikiLeaks.
So here are a few items following up on our previous report...
"[W]ho better to develop a corporate information reconnaissance capability than companies that have been market leaders within the DoD and Intelligence Community."
- 'Team Themis', from their 11/3/10 "Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell" proposal delivered to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's law firm Hunton & Williams.
As I learned late last Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful Rightwing lobbying group in the country, was revealed to have been working with their law firm and a number of private cyber security and intelligence firms to target progressive organizations, journalists and citizens who they felt were in opposition to their political activism, tactics and points of view.
As I went on the air Thursday night --- my fifth in a six-day guest hosting stint on the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show --- revelations about the planned multi-million dollar political hit job by the security/intelligence firms working to develop a scheme for the U.S. Chamber (and another one, almost identical to it, on behalf of Bank of America) were just beginning to come to light. Both plots were being developed by the Chamber and BofA by the very same law firm, Hunton & Williams and with the cyber intelligence firms HBGary Federal, Berico Technologies & Palantir Technologies.
As the show began, I was able to report the news, based on an exclusive report from Lee Fang at ThinkProgress, that internal emails from one of the firms, confirmed that VelvetRevolution.us (VR), a progressive non-partisan, non-profit organization co-founded by The BRAD BLOG, and its StopTheChamber.com campaign were specifically highlighted as targets of the Chamber's plot which was proposed to include the planting of a "false document", in hopes they'd be publicly released by VR or other progressive groups, so the U.S. Chamber could then claim the groups involved had created a forgery.
The plan also involved creating "two fake insider personas", one at VR and another at the unrelated Change To Win organization, which had employed a coalition of union groups to create a non-profit campaign, some months after VR's, called U.S. Chamber Watch. The plan presented by Team Themis, as the three security firms called themselves, would then use one of the "fake personas" as "leverage to discredit the other while confirming the legitimacy of the second" in hopes of publicizing the fraudulent appearance of some sort of "conspiracy" between the various progressive organizations in order to somehow discredit them.
As Thursday's show continued, I received confirmation that I, personally, along with members of my family, had been highlighted in Themis' proposed hit job, as ThinkProgress followed up with a second story, based on several other emails from HBGary's CEO Aaron Barr. The email focused on me included names, personal information, home addresses, etc. of myself, family members and a number of other members of VR. Naturally, I reported on the then-confirmed news in the second hour of that night's Malloy Show.
An hour or so after the show went off the air Thursday night, The BRAD BLOG was no longer reachable, as our server had been knocked off line hard, so I was unable to follow up with much more information. The server we use, which is also the home for many other progressive websites, was out of commission for nearly 24 hours, though I am told by our server admin that the very unusual outage was related to a serious hardware failure which occurred at what was clearly a very inopportune --- and, naturally, suspiciously timed --- moment. Moments before Friday's show, The BRAD BLOG was finally back up and online.
Over the weekend then, I've finally been able to catch up with a lot of what I had otherwise been unable to on Friday due to the server outage and the need to prep for Friday's show while all of this was happening (and as the Egypt regime was collapsing at the same moment).
As I, and other journalists, have been plowing through some of the tens of thousands of emails from HBGary's CEO --- as stolen and released by the "hacktivist" organization calling themselves Anonymous, following Barr's public threat to expose their names --- I've been able to learn a lot more about the U.S. Chamber plan.
Part of the plan included highlighting me as a "Tier 1" player in a sophisticated disinformation/discrediting scheme that relied on high-tech tools developed for the U.S. Government's "War on Terror".
Team Themis' U.S. Chamber of Commerce plan was to deploy the very same techniques and technology used to track terrorists, terror organizations, and nations such as Iran, against private non-profit political advocates and citizens in the U.S.
As disturbing (and there is a lot that every American citizen and every member of the American media ought to be very disturbed by in this story) Hunton & Williams (H&W), the law firm working on behalf of the U.S. Chamber and the Bank of America, had been recommended to BofA, the nation's largest bank, for the parallel hit scheme to target and discredit WikiLeaks, by our own U.S. Department of Justice.
In addition to Barr's email offering personal information on me and my family, the H&W scheme by Team Themis, created for the U.S. Chamber, also included a Power Point presentation in which I am personally highlighted, with photograph, along with my wife "Martha" and "2 boys, James and John Friedman" at our "home at 1055 Raywood Ln, Silver Springs, MD".
Of course, I'm not married and have no children and don't live in MD, but these are the huge private firms receiving millions, if not billions, in U.S. tax-payer dollars to target terrorists, after all, so why let such details like accuracy, or targeting innocent people, or citizens and journalists exercising their right to free speech get in the way of a potential $2 million dollar per month contract from the U.S. Chamber get in the way? The Chamber, of course, is also funded by the world's largest corporations who receive billions in tax-payer bailout dollars and subsidies from the U.S. Government. Can you feel the synergy? Team Themis certainly did...
[Now UPDATED with tonight's audio archives below. Enjoy!]
Our final night after a full week guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show and, as promised last Friday, we got rid of Mubarak before Mike got back! You're welcome, Egypt! And Mike!
As you may know, on last night's show we revealed the targeting by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's thugs on my non-profit organization VelvetRevolution.us and our StopTheChamber.com campaign, but also, as we learned during the show, the same thugs were also targeting me and my family personally!
After the show, The BRAD BLOG was knocked out and has been down ever since. Don't know if the two issues are related or not, but I posted a brief statement on it at MikeMalloy.com earlier today and spoke a lot more about it all in an interview article with Firedoglake's David Dayen.
As the blog is still down at this hour, we'll be holding our usual LIVE chat during the show at MikeMalloy.com (where I am posting this item tonight). We will not be deterred by thuggery of any type!
We're BradCasting LIVE again from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE and lively chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG during the show, so please come on by and say hey while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)
Tonight, along with Egypt updates:
The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on Sirius Ch. 146 & XM Ch. 167. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or via MikeMalloy.com.
POST-SHOW UPDATE: Incredibly, the BradBlog.com server admin got the site back up, literally, moments before air time tonight! And what followed was a rockin' show, at the end of a roller-coaster ride of a week. Hope you agree. The commercial-free audio archives are now posted below and I think/hope you'll enjoy them! (The chat room archives are also below.) Thanks to all for a great week, especially to Mike & Kathy who will return Monday! And there was much rejoicing!...