I live in Los Angeles and work at night.  My ride home consists of navigating the freeway from downtown and takes about forty minutes.  My entertainment consists of fliping around the radio dial trying to avoid the huge blocks of commericials that dominate the airwaves, regardless of the type of programming. The pickings are really dreary and occasionally I've resorted to listening to KFI 640 which is the Rush-Dr. Laura propaganda flagship station.  From seven to ten the station features someone named John Ziegler, an insufferable zealot who fortunately is not syndicated and cannot be heard outside of southern California.  His show on Tuesday precipitated an email exchange that was brief in nature but quite revelatory.  More on that below.  

Today, in a speech at a VFW hall in Kansas City, George W. Bush reiterated another fundamentally dishonest justification for the continued disaster in Iraq.  It is a perspective that has been percolating in the mainstream media and evinced by right wingers ranging from Ben Stein to Dr. Laura.  That when the US withdrew from Southeast Asia, millions of people perished as a direct result.  We must therefore stay in Iraq to avoid the same outcome.  Other diarists have already discussed the Vietnamese government's successful defeat of the Khmer Rouge and the general fallacy of most neocon arguments concerning our withdrawal but they did not discuss how the Khmer Rouge came to power to begin with.    

 
 

As the Neocons regroup for another offensive disguised as a "surge", let us go back to early 2003 and see what some of these very same people were saying shortly after the invasion of Iraq. In their own words they label themselves as fools devoid of any credibility. Who could possibly still believe that these individuals have even the faintest grip on reality much less the ability to offer any positive solution to the current fiasco in Iraq? It would all be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic...

crossposted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/blog/

Unofficially, we now know that there are 1,802,511 borderline psychotics wandering around the state of Florida. That is because, unofficially, 1,802,511 Floridians voted for Katherine Harris on Tuesday. Life and Politics do imitate art. In the film, Austin Powers, Man of Mystery, we are introduced to a devious, lying villain named Dr. Evil. In the sequel we get a tiny alter ego named "Mini-Me".

Everything you need to know about Karl Rove can be summed up in the follwing anecdote:

crossposted at:

http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

A couple of months ago, The Center for American Progress, Clear Channel and Jones Radio Networks announced a contest to find "The Next Progressive Talk Radio Star". This week a national "at-large" contest is selecting  one of ten contestants in a contest featuring internet voting. Unfortunately, the folks sponsoring this contest haven't done a very good job publicizing it. This unfortunate development has lead to a predictable result. One contestant has managed to "freep" the results by mobilizing a small sector of the community to stuff the ballot box for reasons having nothing to do with any of the participants' merit.        

On October 15, 2006, ESPN broadcast additional information on Pat Tillman including unprecedented interviews that prompted a search of a previous article, published in late July. Although this particular quote was diaried here at the time, it got scant attention and did not generate any discussion of the greater implications of this particular officer's comments. Personally, I had not heard this quote, was stunned by its incredible stupidity, potentially willful intent and incredible callousness and believe that the DKos community should be made more fully aware of this ongoing situation.

crossposted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...      

Somewhere in this great country of ours sits a young man with a terrible secret. He might be a former or current congressional page, a government intern or he might even be someone with no connection to Congress. But based on the instant messages, aggressive behavior and photographs of Mark Foley, any reasonable human being could and should assume that Foley has engaged in sexual contact with a minor.  Right now, that person is agonizing over whether or not he should come forward.

cross posted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

Airport security has never really been about providing safety to airline passengers.  It has always been about providing the ILLUSION that governments and airlines are effectively doing everything possible to make the skies safer and more secure.

crossposted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

Thirty years ago, things were looking good for a Rhode Island Governor by the name of Phil Noel. He was both the chairman of the Democratic Party's National Platform Committee and a prominent member of the National Association of Governors. When his political mentor, Senator John Pastore, announced that he would step down after five terms in the US Senate, Noel immediately announced his candidacy for the seat.

crossposted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

During the 9/11 media blitzkrieg, perhaps in an attempt to put a happy face on the deteriorating situation in Iraq, there was much media fanfare over the killing of one Abu Jaafar al-Liby. Mr. Al-Liby was described as the "Number Two Leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq" in numerous news stories. There was no corroboration of this heretofore absolutely unknown individual's terrorist status other than information "from Iraqi authorities."

crossposted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

Bear with me. This may have gotten some attention yesterday but I don't think even this blogspace devoted nearly enough discussion to what was an amazing incident at yesterday's press briefing.

cross posted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

All of the administration's big guns were out in force over the weekend. It was my unfortunate experience to stumble over Condoleeza Rice on Face the Nation and once engaged being unable to change the channel. Overall, her performance might still be perceived as convincing by the thirty-five per cent of the nation who still believe her to have any credibility. In fact, the Department of State actually posted her comments on its official website. But any serious analysis on a sentence by sentence basis should indicate that the administration would be better served by erasing her laughably dishonest and inaccurate rhetoric.
crossposted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

Think that Disney and ABC's "Path to 9/11" is some aberrational project ordered by senior management in what is normally a reasonable and unbiased environment? Guess again. It would only take one example of a local ABC affiliate's approach to a news story to understand that Disney and ABC micromanage a consistently biased and manipulative approach to the news.

crossposted at http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

more on the flip

Last week, the California legislature passed a bill to allow Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to greatly increase his authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District. While this may not seem like a particularly earthshaking development for most folks outside of the LA area, it has an interesting backdrop involving the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.

crossposted at:http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

More below...

Check out a collection of audio guranteed to leave you in shock and awe crossposted at Pottersvilleusa.com/blog

http://www.pottersvilleusa.com/...

 

Some stories can't be spun.

SEATTLE -- Super Bowl Sunday will be a huge day for Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren, but his wife and daughter will not be in Detroit.

Thursday, his wife Kathy and daughter Calla will leave Seattle and head to Africa with Northwest Medical teams for a special mission of their own.

Kathy and Calla Holmgren depart for war-ravaged Congo as part of a mission with the Oregon-based Northwest Medical Teams.

The Holmgrens and a team of six others will train healthcare providers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They will also help with critically needed surgeries. Millions of people have died there either directly or indirectly from a conflict that started in 1998.

Kathy Holmgren is a nurse and her daughter Calla is a doctor. And although she loves her husband and the Seahawks organization, Kathy Holmgren also loves mission work.

She said she will be with her husband and the Seahawks organization in spirit

My spirit will be with her, too.
   

Back to the Future:
Homer Jones
Earl Morrall
Fran Tarkenton
Joe Morris
Lawrence Taylor
Carl Banks
Tucker Frederickson
Junior Coffey
Joe Morrison
Del Shofner
YA Tittle
Jim Katchavage
Sam Huff
Ron Johnson
Clifton McNeil
Bobby Duhon
Freddy Dryer
Phil Simms
Pete Gogolak
Rosey Grier
Pat Summerall
Frank Gifford
Norm Snead
Brad Van Pelt
Spider Lockhart
Joe Piscarcik
Steve DeOssie
Alex Webster
Harry Carson
Stephen Baker
Raul Allegre
Pepper Johnson
Jeff Hostetler
Jumbo Elliot
Matt Bahr
Rocky Thompson
Eldridge Small
Mark Bavaro
Zeke Mowatt
Reyna Thompson
Aaron Thomas
OJ Anderson
Everson Walls
Dave Duerson
Jim Files
Willie Williams
Bob Tucker
Mark Hermann
Maurice Carthon
Doug Kotar
Ernest Gray
Emory Moorehead
Joe Danelo
Byron Hunt
Rob Carpenter
Jerry Shea
Dick Lynch
Charlie Connerly
Ernie Koy
Gary Wood
Mark Ingram
Scott Brunner
Eric Schubert
Bjorn Niitmo

Happy New Year
This diary dedicated to my father, a lifelong Giants fan and tireless progressive Democrat.