Thursday, December 09, 2004
Air America Thriving. Now in DC
Air America, the liberal radio network that had a rocky takeoff last spring, has struck a deal to land in Washington.
The arrangement with WRC-AM comes as the fledgling network is gaining altitude, announcing yesterday that it has re-signed star personality Al Franken to a multiyear contract, raised $13 million in new financing and named Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, as its chairman.
WRC (1260) plans to drop its syndicated sports talk programming in favor of Franken and some of the rest of Air America's left-leaning lineup while adding other liberal commentators, say people familiar with the matter. This would give WRC's owner, Clear Channel Communications, a "blue state" station to balance its "red state" programs on WTNT (570), which includes conservative hosts Laura Ingraham, G. Gordon Liddy and Michael Savage. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49905-2004Dec8?language=printer
Latest Rummy Flap The video was priceless.
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?'' - Army Specialist Thomas Wilson, drawing cheers from about 2,000 troops at Cam Buehring, Kuwait, in an exchange broadcast on Cable News Network. ``You have to go to war with the Army you have,'' – Rumsfeld
Then, razzing of Rummy, to which he hesitatingly replied, ‘Hey, c’mon, I’m an old man, it’s early in the day, I’m collecting my thoughts…’
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. Seems like the Pentagon hasn’t asked for a speed-up of the armor. Developing consensus is that since 27% of the vehicles there STILL don’t have proper protection, it is reasonable to estimate that 20% of the fatalities would not have occurred, i.e. 200 Americans died from this ill-preparedness.
Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday the Army was working as fast as it can and supply is dictated by ``a matter of physics, not a matter of money.''
Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group said in a telephone interview today.
``We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month,'' Mecredy said in the interview. ``I've told the customer that and I stand ready to do that.''
Insurgent attacks on the vehicles with homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are accounting for as much as half of the more than 1,000 U.S. deaths and 9,000 U.S. wounded in Iraq, according to Congressional estimates.
President George W. Bush said concerns raised by soldiers in questions to Rumsfeld yesterday in Kuwait are being addressed,'' Bush said in response to a reporter's question. ``We expect our troops to have the best possible equipment. If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country I'd want to ask the Secretary of Defense the same question, and that is are we getting the best'' equipment, he said. ``They deserve the best.''
`Hillbilly Armor'
U.S. troops preparing for deployment to Iraq told Rumsfeld yesterday they are salvaging armor from landfills to install ``hillbilly armor'' on their Humvees. Rumsfeld replied that ``you have to go to war with the Army you have.'' http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aMGdbQCSwiRg&refer=home
Fate of the Whistle Blower:
On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq, told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center outside the country.
Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/08/coverup/index_np.html?x
Russ Feingold, in the Senate:
Where is this going? Who is in charge? Who knows? No one ever seems to be held accountable for the blunders, the failures, the wildly inaccurate presentations and projections or the painfully ineffective initiatives. Congress cannot simply accept more of the same, keep our heads down and hope that somehow we will muddle through. The stakes are far too high. Our national security, the stability of the world that our children will inherit, our troops — even our country's honor — are on the line. Congress has an obligation, not to oppose every administration effort, but to reassert our role in helping to steer the ship of state wisely rather than recklessly. I look at our foreign policy over the past four years, and I know that America is so much better than this. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20680/
Conservative Wackos at work:
· Reid a racist. As the new majority leader said he’d support Scalia but not Clarence Thomas as Chief Justice, the Right has begun to call him “racist.” Love it.
· Olbermann should be fired. “Grass roots” Right web sites are encouraging his firing, since he’s covering the Ohio saga, nightly on MSNBC, 8 - 9PM.
Election Fraud:
Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Illinois, to the chair of the ad hoc committee, John Conyers, of Michigan, “If the votes are not tallied in the state of Ohio by the appropriate time, is there any thought being given that the committee might consider an objection to the proceeding of the Ohio Electors until such time (as they are tallied)?”
Conyers replied, in his overly deliberate way: “We are now.”
But later, Conyers clarified, “We will wait for someone else,” in preference to drawing congress into a legal battle.
CIA fella speaks out. Amidst the cleansing…a voice
A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.
The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49647-2004Dec8.html
Attention, Consumers: Are you donating your money to a party that holds the opposite of your political views?
Special mention should go to Choose The Blue for their incredibly easy to use page. Choose a shopping category, and their crossed reference menu shows you where your money is going.For example, GM splits their donations 60/40 GOP/Dem; Ford is 71/29. Toyota was the only Blue manufacturer at 74%. Progressive Insurance was 91% Blue (no surprise there), while State Farm was 81% Red.
Tech firms were surprisingly Blue (Sun, Cisco, HP and IBM), with Siebel, Intuit and Activision the Red exceptions. http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/12/_politics_shopp.html
Class Warfare: David Sirota argues for some:
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, crying "class warfare" is the last refuge of wealthy elitists. Yet, inexplicably, this red herring emasculates Democrats in Washington. Every time pro-middle-class legislation is offered, Republicans berate it as class warfare. Worse, they get help from corporate factions within the Democratic Party itself.
But as countless examples show, progressives are making inroads into culturally conservative areas by talking about economic class. This is not the traditional (and often condescending) Democratic pandering about the need for a nanny government to provide for the masses. It is us-versus-them red meat, straight talk about how the system is working against ordinary Americans.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/20702
For those still in denial…yes, him too
TV legend Dick Clark, recovering in a local hospital after suffering a mild stroke this week, plans to return to work in time to anchor two ABC specials New Year's Eve, his publicist said Wednesday.
Clark, who turned 75 on Nov. 30, was reported to be recuperating at an undisclosed hospital. Few details on his condition were released.
"The doctors tell me I should be back in the swing of things before too long, so I'm hopeful to be able to make it to Times Square to help lead the country in ringing in the New Year once again," Clark said in a statement issued by his longtime publicist, Paul Shefrin. http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2585104,00.html
-R
Air America, the liberal radio network that had a rocky takeoff last spring, has struck a deal to land in Washington.
The arrangement with WRC-AM comes as the fledgling network is gaining altitude, announcing yesterday that it has re-signed star personality Al Franken to a multiyear contract, raised $13 million in new financing and named Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, as its chairman.
WRC (1260) plans to drop its syndicated sports talk programming in favor of Franken and some of the rest of Air America's left-leaning lineup while adding other liberal commentators, say people familiar with the matter. This would give WRC's owner, Clear Channel Communications, a "blue state" station to balance its "red state" programs on WTNT (570), which includes conservative hosts Laura Ingraham, G. Gordon Liddy and Michael Savage. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49905-2004Dec8?language=printer
Latest Rummy Flap The video was priceless.
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?'' - Army Specialist Thomas Wilson, drawing cheers from about 2,000 troops at Cam Buehring, Kuwait, in an exchange broadcast on Cable News Network. ``You have to go to war with the Army you have,'' – Rumsfeld
Then, razzing of Rummy, to which he hesitatingly replied, ‘Hey, c’mon, I’m an old man, it’s early in the day, I’m collecting my thoughts…’
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. Seems like the Pentagon hasn’t asked for a speed-up of the armor. Developing consensus is that since 27% of the vehicles there STILL don’t have proper protection, it is reasonable to estimate that 20% of the fatalities would not have occurred, i.e. 200 Americans died from this ill-preparedness.
Armor Holdings Inc., the sole supplier of protective plates for the Humvee military vehicles used in Iraq, said it could increase output by as much as 22 percent per month with no investment and is awaiting an order from the Army.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday the Army was working as fast as it can and supply is dictated by ``a matter of physics, not a matter of money.''
Jacksonville, Florida-based Armor Holdings last month told the Army it could add armor to as many as 550 of the trucks a month, up from 450 vehicles now, Robert Mecredy, president of the company's aerospace and defense group said in a telephone interview today.
``We're prepared to build 50 to 100 vehicles more per month,'' Mecredy said in the interview. ``I've told the customer that and I stand ready to do that.''
Insurgent attacks on the vehicles with homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are accounting for as much as half of the more than 1,000 U.S. deaths and 9,000 U.S. wounded in Iraq, according to Congressional estimates.
President George W. Bush said concerns raised by soldiers in questions to Rumsfeld yesterday in Kuwait are being addressed,'' Bush said in response to a reporter's question. ``We expect our troops to have the best possible equipment. If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country I'd want to ask the Secretary of Defense the same question, and that is are we getting the best'' equipment, he said. ``They deserve the best.''
`Hillbilly Armor'
U.S. troops preparing for deployment to Iraq told Rumsfeld yesterday they are salvaging armor from landfills to install ``hillbilly armor'' on their Humvees. Rumsfeld replied that ``you have to go to war with the Army you have.'' http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aMGdbQCSwiRg&refer=home
Fate of the Whistle Blower:
On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq, told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center outside the country.
Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/08/coverup/index_np.html?x
Russ Feingold, in the Senate:
Where is this going? Who is in charge? Who knows? No one ever seems to be held accountable for the blunders, the failures, the wildly inaccurate presentations and projections or the painfully ineffective initiatives. Congress cannot simply accept more of the same, keep our heads down and hope that somehow we will muddle through. The stakes are far too high. Our national security, the stability of the world that our children will inherit, our troops — even our country's honor — are on the line. Congress has an obligation, not to oppose every administration effort, but to reassert our role in helping to steer the ship of state wisely rather than recklessly. I look at our foreign policy over the past four years, and I know that America is so much better than this. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20680/
Conservative Wackos at work:
· Reid a racist. As the new majority leader said he’d support Scalia but not Clarence Thomas as Chief Justice, the Right has begun to call him “racist.” Love it.
· Olbermann should be fired. “Grass roots” Right web sites are encouraging his firing, since he’s covering the Ohio saga, nightly on MSNBC, 8 - 9PM.
Election Fraud:
Jesse Jackson, Jr., of Illinois, to the chair of the ad hoc committee, John Conyers, of Michigan, “If the votes are not tallied in the state of Ohio by the appropriate time, is there any thought being given that the committee might consider an objection to the proceeding of the Ohio Electors until such time (as they are tallied)?”
Conyers replied, in his overly deliberate way: “We are now.”
But later, Conyers clarified, “We will wait for someone else,” in preference to drawing congress into a legal battle.
CIA fella speaks out. Amidst the cleansing…a voice
A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.
The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49647-2004Dec8.html
Attention, Consumers: Are you donating your money to a party that holds the opposite of your political views?
Special mention should go to Choose The Blue for their incredibly easy to use page. Choose a shopping category, and their crossed reference menu shows you where your money is going.For example, GM splits their donations 60/40 GOP/Dem; Ford is 71/29. Toyota was the only Blue manufacturer at 74%. Progressive Insurance was 91% Blue (no surprise there), while State Farm was 81% Red.
Tech firms were surprisingly Blue (Sun, Cisco, HP and IBM), with Siebel, Intuit and Activision the Red exceptions. http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/12/_politics_shopp.html
Class Warfare: David Sirota argues for some:
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, crying "class warfare" is the last refuge of wealthy elitists. Yet, inexplicably, this red herring emasculates Democrats in Washington. Every time pro-middle-class legislation is offered, Republicans berate it as class warfare. Worse, they get help from corporate factions within the Democratic Party itself.
But as countless examples show, progressives are making inroads into culturally conservative areas by talking about economic class. This is not the traditional (and often condescending) Democratic pandering about the need for a nanny government to provide for the masses. It is us-versus-them red meat, straight talk about how the system is working against ordinary Americans.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/20702
For those still in denial…yes, him too
TV legend Dick Clark, recovering in a local hospital after suffering a mild stroke this week, plans to return to work in time to anchor two ABC specials New Year's Eve, his publicist said Wednesday.
Clark, who turned 75 on Nov. 30, was reported to be recuperating at an undisclosed hospital. Few details on his condition were released.
"The doctors tell me I should be back in the swing of things before too long, so I'm hopeful to be able to make it to Times Square to help lead the country in ringing in the New Year once again," Clark said in a statement issued by his longtime publicist, Paul Shefrin. http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2585104,00.html
-R
