GRITtv with Laura Flanders

For those of you that may not read firedoglake (one of my favorite progressive blog sources), Laura Flanders, the host of  “RadioNation”  heard on Air America Radio  and author of “BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species”, and most recently, Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Political Change in America) provides commentary and has recently started GRITtv. I have been watching it and really like what I see.

Check it out:

Tonight on GRITtv: an excerpt from AFTERSHOCK: American Voices, a film by Anne Derwent and Bob Gray; TAKE BACK THE COURTS from the National Campaign To Restore Civil Rights; a Civil Liberties Roundtable with Anthony Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union,Vincent Warren, Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights, David Golove, Hiller Family Foundation Professor of Law at NYU School of Law; Reverend Billy’s May Day at Union Square; a roundtable discussion on economic justice with Ethel Long-Scott of Women’s Economic Agenda Project and Ana Maria Archila of Make the Road New York; our first YouTube commenter Mr. Everybody Got Issues; and a One on One Interview with Kevin Phillips, Author, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism . Phew! And a commentary from Laura Flanders.

 

And check out the full hour of GRITtv here.

They provide content that is hardly discussed on the MSM (for obvious reasons), by many folks that we read and subscribe to on the web, in a round table discussion format. I can’t help but wonder how they manage the logistics and quality, for this doesn’t appear low budget.

Laura is a great host, providing discussion that doesn’t waver far from subject. Interesting and well-done.

They also have follow ups at firedoglake.

WTF Thursday: Citizen’s Donations Pay For Larry Craig’s Legal Woes

Somehow or another, I have a sneaky feeling that those who have contributed to Larry Craig probably are so ignorant and brainwashed that you will STILL give, no matter what he was caught doing (even if found with one in his mouth).

But doesn’t it piss any of you rednecks off that he would take your donations for his re-election campaign and pay for the legal fees regarding his nob-polishing antics?

I’m just sayin’…

For those of you who still support this man-meat loving hypocrite, just send money directly to his male prostitute friends and forget you ever heard anything from me.

Another One Biting The Dust?

This one, in and of itself, is quite strange, seeing how GE is so damn profitable in its military and other ventures. I just so happen to have been working on a good sized expansion for the GE Decatur, AL plant ($50K in conveyors and other components). I worked with the engineers to spec in our conveyors and have quoted them to all the systems integrators who were going to bid the job.

Now, this news (which also explains the “slight delay” from the engineer in charge).

 

General Electric may auction appliance unit

In a page-one story, the Wall Street Journal reports that “General Electric Co. (GE) plans to start an auction for its appliances business,” according to people familiar with the matter. If completed, the “sale could end more than 100 years of GE’s involvement with appliances.” The Journal notes, “With appliance sales getting hit by the slowing U.S. economy and the housing bust, jettisoning the business could help GE reach its long-term goal of boosting profits by at least 10 percent annually.”
        In a story on the front page of its Business Day section, the New York Times adds, “The division, based in Louisville, Ky., has faced increased pressure in recent years from Chinese manufacturers, which have been growing at double-digit rates thanks in part to significantly lower costs.”
        According to Bloomberg, GE has “hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to explore options that include a spinoff or auction.”
        The AP reports, “The sale could yield between $5 billion and $8 billion.” The company “last year took in $11.6 billion in its sale of its plastics division.” GE “Chief Executive Jeff Immelt has been under pressure to restructure the industrial and financial conglomerate, particularly since last month’s surprising first-quarter earnings report that profit fell 6 percent.”
        Reuters and BusinessWeek also covered the story.

Let’s Dance

Deborah Palfrey’s 911 Conspiracy Connection

continueing from Deborah Palfrey Knew…

9/11 Conspiracy Connection To DC Madam Murder

Palfrey told former NSA official that call girls had picked up information
Washington Post: Report May 14, 2008

Former NSA analyst and Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen tells the The Alex Jones Show that one of the key motives behind the DC Madam’s murder may have been the information her call girls picked up from Washington’s top brass concerning foreknowledge and government complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
Madsen also connected another suspicious death - that of former CIA agent Roland Carnaby who was gunned down by Houston police last week - to another individual who was involved in both the 9/11 cover-up and the D.C. Madam scandal, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Noting that Palfrey and her defense team had tried to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act in the U.S. District Court in Washington, which is only used when classified information or the names of people who are intelligence officers needs to be discussed, Madsen said Palfrey, “Had information which could have a bearing on the 9/11 attacks that some of her employees may have picked up information beforehand that would have been very useful to the 9/11 investigation.”

Madsen added that most of Palfrey’s call girls had been active around the area of McLean Virginia, which is where the CIA and other intelligence agencies are based and where Dick Cheney lived at the time.

Host Alex Jones recalled that during interviews Palfrey had told him that her escort service was in fact being used as an intelligence operation to gather intelligence on individuals who used the service, particularly those connected to the military.

Madsen, who spoke personally to Palfrey on numerous occasions, recalls one conversation at dinner about a month a go with Palfrey and her asset forfeiture lawyer where Palfrey told him, ‘I have information that would have been of great interest to the 9/11 Commission - there’s information that they have (her call girls) that would have been very important for the 9/11 Commission to know having to do with intelligence they picked up about 9/11 before it happened’.

The former NSA official noted that some of Palfrey’s call girls were being chauffeured by Sherlington Limousines to poker parties attended by former CIA director and co-chair of the Joint 9/11 Intelligence Inquiry Porter Goss. One of the reasons cited for Goss’ abrupt resignation in May 2006 was his alleged involvement in a prostitution scandal where lobbyists were holding parties for GOP lawmakers that featured hookers and gambling at the Watergate Hotel in D.C.

On the morning of 9/11, Goss was having breakfast with the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad, the man who ordered a wire transfer of $100,000 to alleged lead hijacker Mohammed Atta.

In addition, Madsen pointed out that Jack Abramoff, who was also connected to the DC Madam scandal, allowed at least two of the 9/11 hijackers to use one of his casino boats in the days before 9/11, and this is what Palfrey was probably referring to when she spoke about her call girls picking up information about 9/11 before it happened.

“There’s the link, when you’ve got Abramoff and you had two of those hijackers on his casino boat a few days before 9/11 - I just wonder if that’s what Jeane was talking about,” said Madsen, “Because now I’m looking at this crazy incident in Houston with Roland Carnaby, a retired CIA guy who was still contracted to the CIA, being gunned down in broad daylight by the Houston police department - now I’ve been told by Agency sources in Houston that one of the people he was looking at was Abramhoff and the casino boats - so here you’ve got two people in the same week, looks like they were both assassinated in broad daylight,” he concluded.

Many readers will recall that Newsweek reported that military brass in Washington received a warning the night before the 9/11 attacks which led to a September 11 flight being cancelled. “NEWSWEEK has learned that while U.S. intelligence received no specific warning, the state of alert had been high during the past two weeks, and a particularly urgent warning may have been received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel a trip. Why that same information was not available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked commercial aircraft may become a hot topic on the Hill,” according to the September 13 2001 issue.

The connection to 9/11 is tantalizing and provides a key motive for why numerous power brokers would have wanted Palfrey to be shut up for good before she had the opportunity to release information in court that her call girls picked up about 9/11 pointing to foreknowledge and government complicity in the attacks.

B’Man’s Patriot Watch: It’s Time To Stand Up and Speak Out

From a true American heroic voice… not afraid to speak truth… unlike most of the political asswipes:

By God: You Rednecks ARE Paying Attention to Me

B’Man: This district is my home district (move from there less than a year ago). I only live thirty minutes away now and spent a good bit of time talking about this race with friends and associates I know for the past 6 months (I still spend a good bit of time there). From what I was hearing, it seemed that Travis actually had a shot, so I went on a rampage of discussing his merits, as opposed to Greg Davis and the reTHUGlican beast that was pouring money into a county that had hardly ever received a nickel from the reTHUGlican party at any other point in history.

In other words, as long as they felt that they had the poor southern rednecks brainwashed enough, they didn’t need to spend money or send Dick Cheney (which was a stupid assed move, to begin with). Cheney is so tainted, even in Mississippi that his presence may have been the catalyst to turn the tables.

I just hope that my efforts made some sort of difference and that the assholes reTHUGlicans are learning what a total ass whipping they are going to get this fall. Serves you right, you sorry pieces of Bushie shit. You brought this on yourself and deserve every loss you acquire. Especially in the Southeast.

 

Mississippi Democrat wrests House seat from Republicans

Associated Press May 14, 2008

JACKSON, Miss. —Mississippi Democrat Travis Childers won a special election to Congress on Tuesday, helping his party to a third victory in recent months for seats long in Republican hands.

Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis by 4 percentage points in a special election to fill the final few months of a two-year term in Congress. The seat was vacated when Roger Wicker was appointed to the U.S. Senate after Trent Lott resigned.

The race had attracted national attention, with Vice President Dick Cheney campaigning for Davis on Monday, and Davis running ads trying to tie Childers to Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama.

Childers, a socially conservative county official, has brushed aside those comparisons, countering that — with his own support of gun rights and opposition to abortion — his social values match those of most voters in the district. The seat has been held by Republicans since 1994.

The win Tuesday allows Democrats to add to their 235-199 majority in Congress — if only for a few months until November’s general elections.

Childers, Davis and two other candidates are expected to face off again in the November election.

Sign of More SE USA Impending Economic Problems?

Toyota delays launch of Mississippi plant

The Wall Street Journal reports that Toyota Motor Corp. has announced it will “delay the launch of its sport-utility vehicle plant in Mississippi by about half a year and ramp up production more slowly than it had planned.” The decision reflects larger problems facing automakers according to the Journal, as they currently “have capacity to produce 17.4 million vehicles a year in North America,” but they “expect to build only about 14 million cars in North America this year,” due to a “sales slump.”
        The AP notes that Toyota Motor Corp. Executive Vice President Mitsuo Kinoshita said that the “vehicle assembly plant being built in Blue Springs, near Tupelo, Miss., was initially to be up and running by late 2009 or early 2010.” The date “has now been pushed back to mid-2010 after Toyota reviewed plans and considered the signs of a slowdown in the U.S. market following the subprime mortgage crisis.” The AFP and Reuters also cover the story.

B’Man: This story is pretty big. US manufacturing is falling apart and the only real saving grace is the onslaught of import products, especially Japanese automotive. For the SE USA, this has been the thing keeping automation houses and manufacturing plants viable (other than the military contractors, which are still growing and making record profits). As US automakers are downsizing and/or leaving the US (even the SE USA, for even down here the costs are too high: which is strange because we stole much of it from the rust belt to begin with for that very reason).

My work has been calling on these companies and I have been lucky thus far to receive a couple of very small orders from Toyota for this new plant (less than $100K in business). Obviously, these have been put on a delayed hold.

The bad news may get worse, for I predict that the economy is headed into much worse conditions and if gas pricing continues to rise, Toyota (or any other importer) will have to make major changes or forget their foray into the USA.

Volkswagen has been considering building here (among others), but if things don’t change, my bet is that the new plant will be called off.

I don’t see any end in sight, so I have little expectations that these endeavors will ever come into existence.

We’re screwed people. We must stand up to the Corporatocracy if we are going to make it as a nation.

Jen’s Update: Another MRI next Monday

MRI Scheduled, Crazy Buffalo Relatives Visiting Entry by T.R. from Ohio     Greetings Jen Nation! The new MRI is scheduled at UAB for next Monday, May 19. Come what may, hopefully it will be conclusive enough to allow definitive treatment moving forward. My sister is hanging in there, though the uncertainty has to be maddening. Based on what she and Mom tell me, she’s not showing the sustained improvement we’d hope to suggest the radio-venom was highly effective. It sometimes feels absurd telling her to “hang in there”, because truthfully I cannot imagine the pain and frustration she’s enduring everyday. I really wish we could trade places for a week to give her some relief, but that’s not God’s plan. But we will keep thinking positively — who knows what we’ll learn next week! My aunts Ellen & Marie and cousin Smitter are visiting Tennessee this week, which will give everyone a boost of joy and strength. I’ll be heading down the second half of the week myself to make sure no one makes too much fun of their Northern accents — ha ha! But we feel you all from afar and continue to appreciate your prayers and support. You know ours are always with you too! – TRH

Read Journal

Have You Ever Thought, “What’s The Point”?

I do. On a daily basis.

I suppose my rationale for this blog is still apt, but as I find other avenues to vent and release my frustration with this country, I meet new people and try to become a team player for the purpose.

Yet, I write a poem and it gets shoveled to the side by the one person I hoped to communicate to the most. I produce 4 videos for a rocking group called Max and the Marginalized, yet it is other videos that get recognition from C&L (and other large sites) even though I am a long time contributer/reader (and I would suggest that the latest is about the same quality as mine).

Very frustrating for me and is telling me that I am spending too much wasted time here at this desk.

I once read a well-known blogger write, “if you blog and no one reads, what is the point”?

Exactly.

Dedicated to Moms Everywhere

Baby Hole

Turd

Poison

B’Man’s Sabbath Watch: “The Family”

The Family: Hillary Clinton’s fascist spiritual guide

Barbara Ehrenreich writes:

There’s a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she’s a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that “through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the “Fellowship,” aka The Family. But it won’t be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet’s shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.

Sean Hannity has called Obama’s church a “cult,” but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton’s “Family,” which is organized into “cells” — their term — and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family’s home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn’t undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn’t completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners — alone.

The Family’s most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes — knitting together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper’s in 2003:

During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa’s postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century’s most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.

At the heart of the Family’s American branch is a collection of powerful rightwing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe, and Rick Santorum. They get to use the Family’s spacious estate on the Potomac, the Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by the Family’s young women’s group. And, at the Family’s frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already-powerful.

Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, the Family’s publicity-averse leader, that he is “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”

Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton’s rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing “religious freedom” in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics. …

What Has Happened To The One I Love?

My first (and LAST) poem:

 

What Has Happened To The One I Love?

 

What has happened to the one I love?

The one that sent chills down my spine

Considering her heroic actions

The one that thrilled my soul knowing

What her people have endured and fought for.

That beacon of hope, trust and admiration

throughout the world?

That understanding that she (our America)

IS the standard bearer. The ideal

 

What has happened to the one I love…

What she has become under the lead of a few?

The merciless tyrant, torturously uncaring

Wrapped up in false flags… false hopes

Deluded by a false sanctimony,

“Fox’d” into self-superiority

telling her “she’s the greatest on the planet”

 

But I keep wondering by what measure.

Because she is “Christ’s Country”?

Crusading the Garden of Eden in search of Armageddon?

Defying all the Christ taught, lived and died for?

Calling light dark and dark light?

 

Are the blind leading the blind?

 

What has changed her… the one I love?

Or is it that I have changed?

Did I swallow the perpetual fear mongering

OR

Did I allow “Jingoism” disguised as “patriotism”

To swallow me?

 

 

What has happened to the one I love?

 

Find a mirror?

Bringing a Whole New Meaning to “Let’s Burn One”

Texas teens tell police they converted skull into bong

HOUSTON (AP) — Three teenagers were arrested after two of them told police they dug up a secluded grave north of Houston, removed the skull from the coffin and converted it into a marijuana bong.

Police found a grave in the city of Humble that had been disturbed, but were still investigating the rest of the teens’ story, Houston police Sgt. John Chomiak said.

Kevin Wade Jones, 17, and Matthew Richard Gonzalez, 17, both of Kingwood, were arrested Wednesday night and were being held on misdemeanor charges of abuse of a corpse, Chomiak said. The juvenile was referred to the Harris County juvenile justice system.

A woman who answered the phone at Gonzalez’s home declined comment. A telephone number for Jones could not immediately be found, and it wasn’t clear from court records if either had an attorney.

Police were interviewing Jones about the use of a stolen debit card when he told them about the grave theft, which purportedly occurred around March 15, according to court documents. Asked why Jones would volunteer such a story, Chomiak said, “We can only speculate and guess to what goes on in the criminal mind.”

Gonzalez confirmed the story to investigators in a follow-up interview. Police were led to a heavily wooded site in Humble where they found a knocked-over headstone and water-filled hole more than 4 feet deep. At the time, the muddy water did not allow police to see if the coffin had been disturbed.

“They dug into this gravesite and that was enough to warrant the abuse of corpse charge,” Chomiak said. “There has to be further investigation into the actual gravesite.”

Police believe the grave is that of an 11-year-old boy who died in 1921. Preliminary reports indicate it was part of a 19th-century veterans cemetery, Chomiak said. While residents in the area knew of the cemetery’s existence, it did not appear to be maintained.

I once had a friend who used an old racoon’s dick as a clip and another friend used a foot off of a hawk. WildBill can attest to the coon dick and how pretty boy used to suck it ALL the time. Swear to god. It was in his mouth at all times. Coon dick. Yes.

This does give me an idea about what to do with my body parts when I die, though.

 

So, to lrose, I bequeath the BuelahHead Bong (you can find the taxidermist).

Wildbill gets the lungs. Just wring them out.

Of course, there ARE OTHER ways to become a human bong:

Pipe Through Eye Socket and Throar Survivor

 

This kid in Australia named Shafique el-Fahkri got into a bar fight with Liam Peart. Peart hit Shafique el-Fahkri with a metal chair. The leg of the chair went through the eye socket and all the way down the throat.

Miraculously, Shafique el-Fahkri survived after a three-hour surgery. Not only that, his eye survived as well. The eyeball was squished to the side when the metal leg went through the eye socket.

Now, theree years later, Shafique el-Fahkri says his left eye is a little blurry and says the he forgives Peart totally.

Richard Noggin’ Saturday: The Lion of the Left

h/t Jonathon Turley

Liberal Talk Show Host Bernie Ward Admits to Distribution of Child Pornography

Bernie Ward, San Francisco’s leading liberal radio host, has admitted to distribution of child pornography by e-mail. He will now face at least five years in prison and as much as ten years.

Ward, 57, is a former Roman Catholic priest who became known as the “Lion of the Left.”

In a hearing before Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, Ward (who had previously denied the allegations) pleaded to a single charge of distribution, involving “exchanging an image of a minor engaged in sexually explicit activity” in December 2004. However, the plea agreement references between 15 and 150 pornographic images via e-mail.

His attorneys are now seeking a five year term. Only nine months would be taken off for good time. The government wants nine months. But both are better than the 20 years that he was looking at. Transcripts of Ward’s calls between December 2004 and January 2005 reveal fantasies related to children. For those transcripts, click here. They notably lack any connection to research that he originally claimed in defense.

For the full story, click here.

Of course there are freaks on the left. But, if one were to list (side by side) all the Dems and THUGS, the THUG list would be much longer and far more hypocritical.