According to our friends at RAW STORY, the plans that Armed Forces Radio had to add the progressive Ed Schultz Show to its current "Conservative"-only line up of talk shows has been changed as of this morning...

Read RAW's whole story to find out the possible reason for the military's flip-flop and last minute decision to NOT stay the course...

So I'm driving to an important appointment yesterday, to which I'm late, when I hear Tammy Bruce on TalkRadio 790 KABC, the powerful ABC station out here in Los Angeles, out and out lying to her listeners.

She's telling them that Valerie Plame/Wilson was not a covert CIA agent. That she couldn't have been because "she drove to work every day at the CIA building." That she was nothing more than a bureaucrat with a desk job at the CIA and so she was never outed.

Never mind that the CIA themselves requested the current Dept. of Justice investigation into the outing of one of their agents, or the myriad CIA officials who have testified that indeed she was very much a covert agent.

Furthermore, the former "liberal" turned...whatever she's turned...also instructs her listeners that Plame/Wilson could not have been covert because she posed in photographs with her husband Joe Wilson months before she was ever mentioned in the press by Bob Novak.

Needless to say by now, for anyone with a nickel's worth of information on the matter, Bruce was horrifically wrong on both accounts. (For just a partial refutation, since my time is short today, from a CIA classmate of Plame/Wilson's, you can read this.) And since Bruce was asking for folks to call in with their opinion on the matter, I did.

While driving, I got through right away to the show via my cell phone. Her producer asked what I was calling about. I identified myself as "Brad Friedman from The BRAD BLOG," and mentioned that "Tammy is completely misinforming her listeners about the Plame affair. That I'd be happy to correct the record having spoken to both Joe Wilson and others at the CIA on these matters, and I'd be happy to give her the real information about what's going on."

Her producer puts me on hold for a minute, and comes back to say, "Please send Tammy some email at TammyBruce@KABC.com and you can give her your thoughts."

I say: "Well, I'm in the car driving right now, so I can't email her."

She says: "You can send her email anytime..."

I say: "Wait, are you not going to put me on the air to talk to her to correct the record?"

She says: "Right."

I say: "Why not?"

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Arianna Huffington supplements her Huffington Post analysis of Judy Miller's and The New York Times' latest account of Miller's role in Traitorgate by appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources this morning.

In her article and later on CNN, Huffington identifies the biggest fault in Miller's account:

CNN Reliable Sources:
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Talk Left focuses on a statement by Miller's lawyer, Bob Bennett, made this morning on ABC's this week that further implicates Libby in attempting to influence Miller's testimony. Hunter at Daily Kos concludes that "Libby is in deep, deep trouble here."

AP quotes Bennett from his appearance on ABC:

ABC This Week:
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Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Larisa's newest blog entry at Huffington Post is called On Liberating Something, and it all sounds extremely liberated, if you ask me.

It starts like this:

and I think you'll enjoy reading the whole thing (in other words, click here!).

Guest blogged by David Edwards

Enjoy these video clips from Bill Maher's latest episode...

Opening: Bush/Cheney Ad Streaming Video in Real Format Windows Media Format	Maher's Monologue Streaming Video in Real Format Windows Media Format
Panel on Iraq and Terror Streaming Video in Real Format Windows Media Format	New Rules and Rant on Miers Streaming Video in Real Format Windows Media Format

In a wistful mood this evening...as apparently is Jane Hamsher who does a fine job of looking both back and forward at Rove's big day today --- four and half hours with the Grand Jury --- as an eery calm seems to set in before the TreasonGate Storm that is most assuredly headed this way.

Thanks also to Jane for pointing us towards DeLay's latest desperate gasp. Something tells us that this (hopefully) soon-to-be "old school" video may end up in a museum some day in the "America's Decade of Shame" section. At least we hope so anyway.

Actual Conservative George Will unleashes on Republican "Faux Conservatives" in his NEWSWEEK column this week.

While his column raises the question of why it has taken so long for Will to finally get firmly on board the bandwagon of honest-to-God Conservatism in calling out the Republican Party and their leaders for their phony use of the "Conservative" label for little more than cynical partisan expediency, The BRAD BLOG is impressed enough with his no-holds-barred column to award him our "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award".

We hope this award --- very rarely bestowed these days due to the overwhelming dearth of actual Conservatives willing to call out their fake "Conservative" brethren for what they are --- may soon find still more recipients as the Conservative Momement finally begins to distance themselves from the disaster that is the Bush Presidency and the failed Republican Leadership in Congress.

By way of making the case for Bush and the Republican-led Congress' complete avoidance of true Conservative values, consider this point amongst many from Will's latest piece:

While we have many and various policy disagreements with true Conservative philosophy, we welcome the general tenets of Conservativism as applied towards American discourse and policy-making. What we are appalled by however, and have been for some time, is the continuing phony use of the "Conservative" label for pure partisan gamesmanship and political opportunism. That, even while the supposed "Conservatives" in control of every branch of the Federal Government have grown its size --- including so-called non-military discretionary spending --- beyond anything that any of the most "Liberal" Presidents or Congresses have been able to do in the history of the country!

And yet, a majority of Republican voters, according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, continue to blindly support the anything-but-Conservative borrow-and-spend Republican "President" and Congress.

In that regard, Will is particularly on-target in his attack on the beseiged, disgraced and ethically-challenged Rep. Tom DeLay. In a blistering attack, Will describes the fallen U.S. House Majority Leader as one "who neither knows nor cares any more about limited government than a camel knows or cares about calculus."

He then continues to take on what he describes as the "faux conservatism" of today's Republican Party as sold out to the D.C. lobbyist's brand of what Will describes as "K Street conservatism."

Quoting Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee who charges that some Republicans think "big government is good government if it's our government," Will unleashes on the entire "faux conservative" cabal in Washington:

He closes with a remarkably lucid assault on the abandonment of virtually all true Conservative values --- including a complete abdication of the bedrock Conservative notion of personal accountability --- by those now (for the moment) in power in Washington in general and in the White House's War on Iraq in specific:

All of which leaves us scratching our head in continued wonderment and asking, along with Eric Alterman, who commented on a new Pew Research poll released today by asking "You couldn't have figured this out, say, last November?"

Alterman's question was directed to the American people, a majority of whom for the first time, the Pew poll finds, now say "George W. Bush's presidency will be judged as unsuccessful" and that "By a 2-1 margin, people said the Bush administration has had a negative impact on politics and the way government works."

Setting aside what the people actually said last November --- since we have no real way of knowing due to the disastrous gutting of a once fairly-reliable and once fairly-transparent Electoral System in this country --- it's perfectly appropriate to direct Alterman's question towards Will. Where the hell was he last November?!

Nonetheless, given the dearth of Republicans who still maintain an actual set of Conservative Values --- better late than never, we guess --- we'll go ahead and award Will the coveted BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award" today. We offer it in the hopes of "shaking the bushes" to encourage other true Conservatives to step out from the shameful, murky, self-deceiving and destructive cynicism of Power-before-Policy and Politics-before-Country brand of "Faux Conservatism" that has hijacked and perhaps irreconcilably destroyed both the Conservative Movement in America and the Republican Party along with it.

{Thanks to Des for tips to both Will's and Alterman's pieces.}

During a discussion about "parental notification" for teen abortions on this morning's Bill O'Reilly radio show, the "no spin" host vibrated with a charge that Planned Parenthood encourages teen abortions so that they can "get paid for every abortion they're involved with."

I heard the smear merchant, O'Reilly mention it this morning, but as I'm in the middle of a mountain of stuff, I knew I wouldn't have time to look into it and blog it myself. I shouted out to the good folks over at Media Matters, who record such things all day anyway, and they just now blogged the item (with a courtesy tip of the hat, to yours truly): [emphasis theirs]

The full Media Matters item offers information on how Planned Parenthood is actually paid, along with the audio clip from the segment.

And, by the way, MM, who's always looking out for Bill O'Reilly, encourages folks to send in such tips to mm-tips@mediamatters.org.

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to a late-night e-mail from Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story is currently featuring an article by Jason Leopold which starts like this:

No kidding. There's a lot more to the story and you can read it here.

You gotta love her, don't you? Larisa Alexandrovna not only gave us a heads-up when Jason Leopold's article hit the net; she also contributed research to the article! So: three cheers for Larisa Alexandrovna! Hip Hip ... no, seriously: Read more here.

Guest blogged by David Edwards

As we noted earlier, on tonight's broadcast MSNBC's Countdown presented a report called "The Nexus of Politics and Terror".

In a piece which mildly reminds us of the BBC series The Power of Nightmares (video here), Countdown host, Keith Olbermann, provides evidence that politicians may use the fear of terror attacks to accomplish political goals.

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Read more at MSNBC's Bloggerman...

I've been watching FOX "News" all morning, and for some reason they've failed to mention the following report that the CIA has criticized the Bush Administration in its latest report on Intel failures vis a vis Iraq. So I guess it's up to me to make sure that you know about it!

From this morning's USA Today:

Full story here. Sssh...Don't tell Fox! We'd hate to rock their rose-colored world.

(Hat tip to emailer Tom O. for the tip)

{Blogged by Brad, yes, still on the road...}

It was a joy to be in-studio yesterday evening with Peter B. Collins up here in Monterey on KRXA 540am. An honest-to-goodness Progressive radio station not owned by a corporate monolith! In fact, I was honored to have been greeted, upon my arrival, by Station Manager and co-owner Hal Ginsberg before spending an hour on-air with Peter, the other co-owner and Program Director and host of their afternoon show drive-time show.

They're new on the airwaves out here, and a very welcome addition. Hopefully more folks will buy up more stations and program them similarly to help give the truth a chance of getting out where the Corporate-run Media are simply failing America.

And I don't say all of that merely because they're interested in carrying The BRAD SHOW on KRXA. (Though such things never hurt!

If you're interested, here's the hour [MP3] I spent yesterday with Peter on air. Includes at least one wingnut caller! Enjoy!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

According to Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections:

This looks like good news. And there's more at the Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections website.

Guest blogged by David Edwards