mike malloy

If you are disappointed or angry about the firing of Mike Malloy by Air America send comments to >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>comments@airamericaradio.com

republican corporate facism

A just-released report from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, top executives at major U.S. corporations took home 411 times more than average workers ;ast year.

In 1994, at the birth of the living wage movement, chief executive pay outpaced pay for average workers by only 142 times.

To fatten corporate bottom lines and hit those jackpots, executives have downsized workers, outsourced jobs, gutted pensions, trimmed benefits, and slashed R & D. These executive decisions, taken together, have left American workers appreciably poorer and American companies considerably less competitive.

Just one example: CEOs at the nation's top 34 defense industry companies, the new "Executive Excess" report documents, have seen their average pay double since the "War on Terror" began. Nearly every major corporation in the United States today is taking in substantial revenue from government contracts, subsidies, tax breaks, or grants.

In a jurisdiction that has already enacted a living wage ordinance, for instance, progressives could insist that no government contracts ought to go to companies that pay their top executives over 25 times that jurisdiction's living wage. SO GO VOTE THIS NOVEMBER.

more republican lies

WHEN President Bush declared last week that "nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered" the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a large segment of the American public must have been very surprised. Another lie.

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.": Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister.

Isn't this what Bush said, "my job is to say it over and over again." So, who is the facist?

WHEN President Bush declared last week that "nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered" the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a large segment of the American public must have been very surprised because saying it again doesn't change the FACT that its a BIG LIE.

bye bye Air America

It's a crying shame that Air America is on its last pegs. Evidence of this is the firing of their premier talk show host. You know his name. It's Mike Malloy. A real entertainer and commentator who tells it from the heart. A giant on that network among midgets.

The death knell has sounded. We have heard the taps being played. How sad. How revolting. It's a victory for the far right facists to silence such an eloquent voice. Bye Bye Air America. Have a nice funeral.

War money going to republicans

A new report on the "Cost of Iraq" will be released on Wednesday, August 30. The report will analyze the cost of the Iraq War by Congressional district.

Since the Iraq war began, the Republican-led Congress has spent more than $300 Billion on President Bush's failed policy. $18 billion has been awarded to Halliburton (Cheney's Company), much of which was in "no bid" contracts and $9 billion is missing.

Most Americans agree President Bush's Iraq policy is a fiasco. But Congress keeps rubber-stamping Bush's wasteful spending. By voting to spend $300 billion on the fiasco in Iraq, Republicans in Congress have short-changed education, health care, job creation, and tough homeland security.

Segregated Iraqi Army

The Iraqi army is recruited and trained regionally, and they expect to serve in their own provinces. That is by and large the practice, but in times of crisis -- like the outbreak of violence in Baghdad -- they can in theory be called on to deploy anywhere.

Members of two Iraqi military units have refused orders to deploy to heavily contested areas around Baghdad, a top U.S. military general said. . The majority were Shiite who make up 60% of the country"s population. Some army!

update Iraq

and the beat goes on and on:
U.S. price tag of $320 billion of our money and "at least 2,631 " members of the U.S. military have died, not counting (1)"contractors" (2) Iraqi civilian women and children (3) the tens of thousands that have been wounded, and (4) the one in five surviving soldiers that have lingering mental problems

A miserable milestone was passed the other day. America's (andBritain's) disastrous war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the US involvement in the Second World War.

how republicans do business with our money

Letitia White was a receptionist when she joined the staff of Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif. More than two decades later, she is an influential lobbyist whose connections to Lewis — now chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee and others on the Hill have translated into millions of dollars for her and her firm.

During the year prior to her departure from Lewis' office, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported, her income dropped by around $11,000, to just $80 below the $112,500 salary ceiling that would have triggered an automatic one-year ban on her lobbying of Lewis.

The day after leaving the Hill, on Jan. 9, 2003, White signed up a major client, General Atomics, along with one of its aeronautics subsidiaries. The companies received several multimillion-dollar earmarks that year in the defense spending bill for the 2004 fiscal year, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, including $3 million for General Atomics to provide anti-terror systems at Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty, and $15.3 million for the aeronautics division to develop unmanned aerial vehicles.

By the end of 2003, White had signed up about 15 more clients, mostly defense contractors, and was bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees. Her clients were enjoying similar success to General Atomics in getting earmarks. White, her husband lobbyist Richard White, and her firm's clients were donating generously to Lewis' fundraising committees.

White co-owns a Capitol Hill townhouse with the head of one of her client companies, Trident Systems Inc. Trident's founder, Nick Karangelen, is chairman of a political action committee called Small Biz Tech PAC that has employed Lewis' stepdaughter, Julia Willis-Leon, for fundraising. White and her husband have both donated to the PAC.

neo-con plans

That's surely the question uppermost in the minds of Bush administration neocons as they seek to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat following Israel's costly and unsuccessful effort to destroy Hizbollah. Urged on by the Bush administration (while condemned by the rest of the world), Israel undertook its invasion not for the reason advertised (in response to recent Hizbollah attacks) but to deprive Tehran from using the Shiite militia in retaliation for the long-planned attack on Iran.

If the Lebanese fighters can be driven from the border area back behind the Litani River, they will be unable to launch missile attacks such as the 3800 provoked by Israeli's most recent invasion.

U.S. public opinion will more likely accept an attack on Iran if it can be sold as part of the "War on Terror." Bush has already depicted Israel's attack on Lebanon as part of that war, and the U.S. corporate media has dutifully portrayed the recent fighting as between Israel acting in self-defense and a "terrorist Hizbollah" acting as a proxy for Iran, the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism."

Perhaps a third of the nation is inclined to accept an attack on Iran and the apocalyptic scenario to follow as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy---hence welcome in preparing the way for the Lord.

Even if Iraq's a disaster, Afghanistan a growing problem, and the president widely perceived as stupid and dishonest, the neocon-driven administration just might get what it wants---its new Israel-centered U.S.-occupied creatively chaotic Greater Middle East---by the end of the president's second term.

who is willing to bleed for these Republicans?

History is repeating itself this week, when the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, released a garishly illustrated and luridly written document that is ostensibly dedicated to ‘helping the American people understand’ that Iran’s fundamentalist regime and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States.

Hoekstra is just one in a never ending coil of snake-like, Republican liars who want as much blood and death and injury as the American people are willing to give. They are cowards, these Conservatives. Given a chance to enter the military they flee like scared little children. So, who is willing to bleed for these Republicans?

war criminals

A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein.

Benjamin Ferenccz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than 1 million people, told OneWorld both Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting "aggressive" wars--Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Republicans destroy freedoms, one step at a time

During his gubernatorial days in Texas, George W let slip a one-sentence thought that unintentionally gave us a peek into his political soul. In hindsight, it should've been loudly broadcast all across our land so people could've absorbed it, contemplated its portent?and roundly rejected the guy's bid for the presidency. On May 21, 1999, reacting to some satirical criticism of him, Bush snapped: "There ought to be limits to freedom."

So many freedoms to limit, so little time! But in five short years, the Republican BushCheneyRummy regime has made remarkable strides toward dismembering the genius of the Founders, going at our Constitution and Bill of Rights like famished alligators chasing a couple of poodles.

Forget about such niceties as separation of powers, checks and balances (crucial to the practice of democracy), the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and open government-these guys are on an autocratic tear.

Whenever they've been challenged (all too rarely), they simply shout "war on terror," "commander-in-chief," "support our troops," "executive privilege," "I'm the decider," or some other slam-the-door political phrase designed to silence any opposition.

Indeed, opponents are branded "enemies" who must be demonized, personally attacked, and, if possible, destroyed.

Bush's find-the-loopholes lawyers assert that a president has the right to lie (even about going to war), to imprison people indefinitely (without charges, lawyers, hearings, courts, or hope), to torture people, to spy on Americans without court or congressional review, to prosecute reporters who dare to report, to rewrite laws on executive whim?and on and on.

children killed

Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Israel of war crimes, saying it broke international law by deliberately destroying Lebanon's civilian infrastructure during its recent war with Hezbollah guerrillas.

The human rights group said initial evidence, including the pattern and scope of the Israeli attacks, number of civilian casualties, widespread damage and statements by Israeli officials "indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than 'collateral damage.'"

The United Nations children's fund, UNICEF, estimates that some 1,183 people died, mostly civilians and about a third of them children, while the Lebanese Higher Relief Council says 4,054 people were injured and 970,000 displaced. U.N. officials reported that around 15,000 civilian homes were destroyed.

died for nothing

Hundreds of Israeli reservists pushed Monday for an investigation of how the government and army handled 34 days of fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas, saying they were rushed into battle without enough food, water and equipment.

A group of parents of fallen soldiers called for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's resignation, saying that the government's objectives had not been achieved and that their sons died for nothing.

Sound Familiar? Ours have died based on lies of WMD's and a connection to 9/11 and went into a civil war without adequate armor.

out-of-step republicans

"Hezbollah has demonstrated that total Arab defeat is not inevitable. ... Israel has lost its tremendous psychological advantage," says George Friedman, an intelligence analyst and CEO of Stratfor, a private intelligence firm in Austin.

"Israel will be perceived by its enemies as weak, constrained and dysfunctional," says Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator now at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

The conflict also has dealt a blow to Bush's campaign to bring democracy to the region. It bolstered Iran, Hezbollah's main patron, and Shiites elsewhere — including in Iraq, where, "having first experienced the limits of American power, (the Shiites) are now seeing the expanding boundaries of Iranian power," Friedman says.
"Israel will be perceived by its enemies as weak, constrained and dysfunctional," says Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator now at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

Yet, the United States is taking a different lesson from the conflict. President Bush said this week that Hezbollah lost. That shows just how ignorant and wrong these Republicans are and continue to be.

vote, vote vote

Five years after 9/11, the Bush administration has failed to keep us safe. The war in Iraq has diverted attention from protecting America from terrorism. This past week 9/11 commissioners said Iraq is distracting from security at home. The war in Iraq has inflamed the whole Middle East and is helping Al Qaeda attract new recruits.

Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose. Katrina showed all of us that the Republicans aren't able to protect America at home.

The Republican Congress hasn't followed through on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Republican political attacks during last week's terror threat are outrageous. Dick Cheney said Connecticut voters were supporting Al Qaeda. Don't let him get away with that.

Register to vote, demand paper trails so they can't steal close elections again, and VOTE.

baby killers

Limits to tolerance There are limits to our patience, and there are limits to our tolerance. We do not believe in divine promises as a justification for occupation and apartheid. We have left the Middle Ages behind. We laugh uneasily at those who still believe that the god of flora, fauna and the galaxies has selected one people in particular as his favorite and given it silly, stone tablets, burning bushes and a license to kill.

We call baby killers "baby killers" and will never accept that people such as these have a divine or historic mandate excusing their outrages. We just say: Shame on all apartheid, shame on ethnic cleansing and shame on every terrorist strike against civilians whether carried out by Hamas, the Hezbollah or the State of Israel!

who is moral in politics?

Cheney suggested Wednesday that Lamont's victory might encourage "the al-Qaeda types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task." Joe Lieberman thinks a Lamont victory in Novermber could embolden terrorists.

"My God, here we have a terrorist threat against hearth and home and the very first thing that comes out of their mind is how can we turn this to partisan advantage. I find that offensive," Lamont said in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press.

the future of our beloved USA

The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything.

Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about. If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

Four sorrows are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787.

First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut.

Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co- equal 'executive branch' of overnment into a military junta.
Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.

Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens.

update Iraq

Police found a dozen bodies trapped in a grate in the Tigris River, and a roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers on a foot patrol south of Baghdad Saturday as nearly 50 violent deaths were reported across Iraq.

They appeared to have been the victims of sectarian death squads(civil war) that operate in the religiously mixed communities in the Baghdad area.

Remember Cheney saying the insurgents in Iraq were just deadenders in their last throes. Lies, lies.

false government accounting

The federal government keeps two sets of books.

The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.
The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

Congress has written its own accounting rules — which would be illegal for a corporation to use because they ignore important costs such as the growing expense of retirement benefits for civil servants and military personnel.

crony "govment" contractors

The Bush administration on Wednesday awarded temporary housing contracts worth up to $1.5 billion for future hurricane disasters, including four to companies that previously received no-bid contracts for Katrina work.

Four of the six contracts awarded will go to Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure, Bechtel National, CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Enterprises Inc., which received similar contracts but without competition after Hurricane Katrina last fall.

Some of the companies have strong political and government ties. The Shaw Group's lobbyist, Joe Allbaugh, is a former FEMA director and is a friend of President Bush, while Bechtel CEO Riley Bechtel served on Bush's Export Council from 2003-2004, and CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. have done extensive previous work for the government.

Iraq update

New studies make the Bush administration's "liberation" argument for a 'pre-emptive' war against Iraq seem questionable.

The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 by U.S.-led coalition forces has been responsible for the death of at least 150,000 civilians, reveals a compilitation of scientific studies and corroborated eyewitness testimonies.

The majority of these deaths, which are in addition those normally expected from natural causes, illness and accidents, have been among women and children, documents a well-researched study, that had been released by The Lancet Medical Journal.

The report in the British journal is based on the work of teams from the Johns Hopkins University and Columbia University in the U.S., and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad.

Lebanon update

Israeli death toll to 97, including 49 soldiers, the 12 reservists and 36 civilians. Israel's attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 617 people, including 524 civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers and at least 53 Hezbollah guerrillas.

Iraq civil war, who do you believe?

The Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, neo-cons and their lackeys say Iraq is not yet in a civil war. However, the Iraqi civil war has already begun, U.S. troops say: Villages have been abandoned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims;
Sunni insurgents have killed thousands of Shiites in car bombings and assassinations; Shiite militia death squads have tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunnis; and when night falls, neighborhoods become open battlegrounds.

Republican neo-cons

There is no way that the Republican neo-cons in our shadow government are ready to admit that their thinking is flawed; they continue to confuse confidence with success, desire with achievement, military muscle with the ability to achieve practical goals. Who pays for all this bumbling?

google chickenhawks for conservatives

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth: Mark Twain

He must have been talking about conservatives for liberals try to create a moral universe, conservatives try to dismantle it. Jesus was a liberal.

more republican lies

Republican conservative websites and Web logs have used only snippets of Dingell's comments. Mehlman said Friday, "As our allies fight this same war on other fronts, should we support them, or should we — as the longest-serving Democrat in the House and possible committee chairman John Dingell said — 'not take sides for or against Hezbollah.'"

Now for what Dingell really said," if the United States is going to be an honest broker in the Middle East, it must talk to Israel and Hezbollah. I happen to be — I happen to be against violence, I think the United States has to bring resolution to this matter. Now, I condemn Hezbollah as does everybody else, for the violence," Dingell said.

More lies by these republicans.

Republicans on your health

Creekstone Farms, a Kansas beef producer, wants to reassure customers that its cattle are safe to eat by testing them all for mad cow disease. Sounds like a smart business move, but there's one problem: The federal government won't let the company do it.

Sixty-five nations have full or partial restrictions on importing U.S. beef products because of fears that the testing isn't rigorous enough. As a result, U.S. beef product exports declined from $3.8 billion in 2003, before the first mad cow was detected in the USA, to $1.4 billion last year. Foreign buyers are demanding that USDA do more.

The brain-wasting disease — known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE — is extremely rare but extremely deadly. Since 1986, it has killed more than 150 people worldwide, mostly in Britain, who ate infected meat.

USDA is doing the bidding of large cattle barons afraid that Creekstone's marketing will force them to do the same tests to stay competitive. It's true that the incidence of mad cow disease is quite low. But there's little logic in stopping a company from exceeding regulations to meet the demands of its customers, or protecting its rivals from legitimate competition

"In a nation dedicated to free market competition," says John Stewart, CEO of Creekstone, which is suing USDA, "a company that wants to do more than is required to ensure the quality of its product and to satisfy customer demand should be allowed to do so." When regulators disagree with reasoning like that, you know the game is rigged.

republican war

Hundreds of thousands of Shiites chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" marched through the streets of Baghdad's biggest Shiite district Friday in a show of support for Hezbollah militants battling Israeli troops in Lebanon.

"Mahdi Army(Iraqi) and Hezbollah are one. Let them confront us if they dare," the predominantly male crowd shouted, waving the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Iraq

Al-Sadr followers painted U.S. and Israeli flags on the main road leading to the rally site, and demonstrators stepped on them — a gesture of contempt in Iraq. Alongside the painted flags was written: "These are the terrorists

Protesters set fire to American and Israeli flags, as well as effigies of President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, showing the men with Dracula teeth. "Saddam and Bush, Two Faces of One Coin" was scrawled on Bush's effigy. This is what these Republicans have got us into based on lies.

two sets of books ok for our "go'ment"

The federal government keeps two sets of books.

The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.

The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules.

It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005.

If Social Security and Medicare were included — as the board that sets accounting rules is considering — the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

who cares?

read today:
The story that rockets to Israel came from Cana, it turns out, was a lie. No rockets originated from Cana, yet all those women and children were horribly killed. And none of these self styled US sleeve Christians care. All those victims might as well have been victims of the pogroms in Poland back in 1943.

update Iraq

and the beat goes on and on:

U.S. price tag of $320 billion of our money and "at least 2,578 " members of the U.S. military have died, not counting (1)"contractors" (2) Iraqi civilian women and children (3) the tens of thousands that have been wounded, and (4) the one in five surviving soldiers that have lingering mental problems.