reflect on this

I'm taking my country back

here's the song

Just how great is the economy

EPI was established in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. Today, with global competition expanding, wage inequality rising, and the methods and nature of work changing in fundamental ways, it is as crucial as ever that people who work for a living have a voice in the economic debate

Minimum credit card payments to double

I'm not sure what I think about this yet. So tell me your thoughts: Credit card companies, starting next month, will double their minimum payments. Ultimately it will be a help to the consumer because they will be paying less interest in the long run and pay off debt sooner. But in the short term consumers will have to pinch their pennies to make new higher payments.
So if you're "budgeting" around those payments you could be in for a rough ride. Especially if you hit Christmas hard or if you're maxed out. But sometimes medicine tastes terrible. What I mean is this: If you currently pay min on 10,000 it'll take about 20 years to pay off. Now it'll be 10. When it comes down to it you shouldn't be paying the minimums.
the one problem I have is that we, my lovely wife and I, didn't receive any notice that we can think of from the credit companies. And I'm not sure how this will play on top of the new bankruptcy laws.

The EPA is at it again

in the name of "burden reduction" for businesses, the EPA wants to rein in some requirements. In September, the agency proposed raising the reporting threshold for many chemicals from 500 pounds to 5,000

yet another case of citizens acting like gestapo

Civil rights groups criticized the FBI and a suburban school district Thursday for allowing federal agents this fall to question a 16-year-old high school student who had doodled "PLO" on his binder two years ago.


That's right. 2 years ago and no parental notification.

funny quotes

Our torture stance is very simple. We don’t torture people. Never have. Never will. We just don’t want to rule it out.

DU- Depleted Uranium you be the judge

Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets’ means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.

terror alerts

does anyone remember the last time the threat level was raised to orange. i think it wa just before the election.

dates for george and russ?

Lamb and Lynx Gaede are two 13 year old twin sisters who are also known as the band Prussian Blue.

Recently they received international media attention because Prussian Blue is a White Pride band. The songs they the girls sing reflect their White Nationalist beliefs. Today, if you are White ,and proud to be White , it is considered Politically Incorrect by the media. The music that Prussian Blue performs is intended for White people.

here's how thety get us

That's the benefit side, the costs of which are borne by the tens of millions of milk consumers who're forced to pay maybe $20 or $30 more per year than they'd have to pay if there weren't congressionally-mandated minimum prices. Which one of us is willing to bear the expenses to go to Washington or state capitols to try to unseat legislators who created the opportunity for the dairy industry to rip us off? Individually, we correctly conclude that it's cheaper just to pay the $20 or $30 more a year and get on with our lives. Plus, since milk consumers have diverse interests, it'd be costly to organize us to fight the dairy interests and their congressional allies

democrat response to NSA taps

Governor Howard Dean is filing a formal demand that they release these documents. You can add your name to a Freedom of Information Act request by providing the information below

clicking here

it pays to own congressmen

the hits keep comoing

German kidnapped by CIA

In the months that had passed, his wife had taken their children and moved away, thinking he would never come back. When he returned, she barely recognized him – 40 pounds lighter, with long hair and a shaggy beard. Al-Masri went public with his story roughly six months after he was reunited with his family.

Since then, he has continued to move closer to his ultimate goal.

"What I would like ... is an acknowledgment that the CIA is responsible for what happened to me, an explanation as to why this happened, and an apology."

Military spies on U.S. citizens

the DOD database includes at least 20 references to U.S. citizens or U.S. persons. Other documents obtained by NBC News show that the Defense Department is clearly increasing its domestic monitoring activities. One DOD briefing document stamped “secret” concludes: “[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents,

the bush's and the rev. moon

Bush Meets the Messiah
the scoop on Rev. Moon

goooood morning vietnam

adrian cronauer of Good Morning Vietnam fame is the head of an organization called Citizen Flag Alliance. They are fighting for a flag burning amendment. I just saw him arguing that the only reason one would burn a flag is to incite anger. but I think it's an expression of anger.

Burning a flag is an especially hard piece of free speech but if america is free then you got a take it. Even if it means that an american citizen actually hates america. people are free to hate their parents why not their country.

I'm watching the members 9-11 commission come together to grade the government, legislative and executive branches on the follow up to their report. Their commission issued it's report a few months ago and so they are not officially empaneled. What they are doing is saying - wake up

"The fundamental purpose of the government is to protect people. to keep the peace to keep us safe from harm. within and from without our nation if we dont have that we are a disorganized savage society and there's no rationale for anything govt does."- James Thompson 9-1 commission member (R)

They are giving the govt Fs and Ds on the follow through with their recomendations. I find it crazy that we haven't moved very far on this when we have been coming up with ways to okay torture and to buid bridges to nowhere and debating terry schaivo. what is going on

The Russ discussions

I just read yur links Russ. You may indeed have a point on the hispanic race thing. although I have seen many forms that I have had to fill out ask for race specifically as "hispanic, non-white" there doesn't seem to be any such distinction in the stats you linked to.

Now as to Sherriff Moose, I have never been a fan of his.But the link you sent was opinion and didn't source any of the claims. Having said that, I'll agree on the whole overblown PC nature of things today.

EPA to allow pesticide testing on orphans amd mentally handicapped children

what the fuck is wrong with these people

Pentagon pays $300 Million to news agencies in Iraq

Proponents of such tactics argue that different standards should be applied to what is permissible in a combat zone such as Iraq than, say, in the United States or other stable democracies.

I don't have time yet but somebody check on this lincoln group. i believe there are ties to the CIA and Bush donors

Good hing somebody's making money off the war

You may remember me talking about this guy a few months ago. He has received something like 300% PAY RAISE SINCE THE WAR STARTED.

Joint Cheifs Gen. Pace sets Rummy straight on torture

here is video of the following exchange. It's almost smack dab in the middle.

General Pace: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it,"
Rumsfeld: "But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."
General Pace: "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it ."

Activist judges?

there are 680 district judgeships and 179 in the court of appeals. Now somebody straighten me out please. That's 859 judges plus the supreme court. these judges can only be appointed by the President of the United States.
now put that up against this:
Overall, in his four-plus years in office, Bush has pushed a Republican-leaning federal judiciary farther to the right with more than 200 appointments to appellate and district courts.His district court appointees have been "dramatically conservative but not off the board - not so bizarre that the other judges wouldn't know them or speak to them," said Robert A. Carp, a political scientist at the University of Houston who has studied the federal judiciary extensively. Bush's district appointees stand out as particularly conservative on civil liberties cases such as abortion, freedom of speech and gay rights, Carp found.On these matters, Bush's district judgeships were rated 28 percent liberal in Carp's study. That put them well to the right of jurists appointed by Presidents Nixon, at 38 percent, and Ford, at 40 percent, and slightly to the right of Reagan and the first President Bush, both of whom were rated 32 percent liberal.By the end of his second term, Bush could eclipse Presidents Clinton and Reagan in the number of judges selected - and leave an ideological imprint on the courts for generations to come.Since 1968, when Nixon was elected, Republican presidents have appointed 1,040 judges; Democrats have named 625. While many of the Bush appointees are replacing jurists named by previous Republican presidents, toward the end of his term Bush could have more opportunities to replace some of the Clinton judges, which would have even greater impact.The cumulative effect, said political scientist Donald Songer of the University of South Carolina, is that "the last three Republican presidents' nominees control virtually the whole judiciary."

quoted from :
http://www.wjla.com/headlines/0705/241998.html

Check out this info on Duke Cunningham

http://www.ndsn.org/feb97/repsson.html

http://www.dukecunningham.org/drugs.html

you may remember this republican congressman. I talked abiout him on the show a few months ago. he sold his house to a defense contractor for way more than the market value and a few months later the contractor sold the house for the market value. excess equals bribe. These links further expose his hypocrisy as he talks the republican tough on crime line but shows how easily he can stray from that path when it involves first his son and now his own pockets.

organ donors

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SC_XGR_PREFILED_BILLS_SCOL-?SITE=SCORA&SECTION=STATE&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

I'm okay with making organ donation automatic unless people opt out

more examples of the coming police state?

woman arrested for not showing ID on bus

kid suspended for taking camera out of bathroom

courts okay bag searches

here are just a few stories in different parts of the country where our rights are being encroached upon. We just have to keep an eye out. because the media is not letting us know when these things are happening. I don't know if it's a conspiracy or we jsut don't "connect the dots". that's why I put this out there. for you to connect the dots

an interesting thought on price controls

http://www.mises.org/story/1962

submitted by mike in mission

Think about your food supply

http://jellybelly.com/Cultures/en-US/Fun/Jelly+Belly+Recipes/New+Jelly+Belly+Recipes.htm

If you go to the site above you will find recipes to mix little jelly belly pellets and get all sorts of tastes. This is what , in effect we are eating everytime we eat fast food or most processed foods in the grocery store. the reason every hamburger at every Mc Ds tastes the same whether you're in Kansas, Georgia, Ohio, or Maryland ( I've tested it. It's true) is the flavorings that they inject into the processing of your meat and potatoes. That's not even mentioning :

• the hormones and antibiotics they feed the cows that we get to eat.
• the cats and dogs fed to the cows we get to eat
• the potential for serious and wide spread outbreaks of nasty stuff like Ecoli

I just listened to "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser great stuff.

can we build a better world?

What if we did something crazy like cut the defense budget by 10% ( they could handle it because the lose billions and don't have clue where it goes)and spent the money on an auditing arm of government (perhaps the CBO or GAO) that sought out waste and corruption in the whole of govt. and they had real power to audit and real punishments were handed out.

Undoubtedly there would be a great deal of savings found in cleaning up these budgets.

The idea here is to get programs to focus on their missions. If the waste and corruption re caught and the money is spent on more hospital beds or more money inthe classroom , loans , armor for the troops.

WalMart is at it again

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/18/D8DV6UOG0.html

submitted by Mike in Mission

here we go kids

I'm going to try and get back to posting. As always, I'll post things that you send to me (michaeltjustice@aol.com) but i'll edit/editorialize the way I want. If you send it make your case in the comments and don't expect me to make your case for you, especially if it's a weak case.

And please can you folks keep it a little more civil. It's free speech but jeez.

the shut down speech

http://streaming.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/2005/reid_closed_session.320.240.mov.html

Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing.

Rumsfeld is one of the most well positioned people in this administration. He was making money on Iraq back in the day, he was making money off the nuclear technology being sold to North Korea, and now he's making bucks off the avian flu scare.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/?cnn=yes

Just look at the extreme good fortune of the companies that cheney, rice, rumsfeld were involved with: Halliburton, Chevron, Gilead, ABM

i guess i wrong after all

apparently it is Alito.

scary info from the BIG DOG

http://curtweldon.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=35792

Micheal you must read this entire speech. Able Danger is heating up and the cover ups during the Clinton administration into the Bush admin are comeing to light. Secondly i believe Sandy Berger destroyed Able Danger documents. According to his court conviction he had stolen and destroyed the 2000 millennium terror plot. The question remains was Able Danger a single part of the 2000 plot.

The plot thickens.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_2418.shtml

• Hamburg Cell. Mohammed Atta, Ramzi bin al Shibh, and their roommates in Hamburg came under surveillance by German intelligence and the CIA in 1998 because of their association with al-Qaeda operatives in Hamburg who had been linked to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Those operatives included Mamoun Darkazanli, Mohammad Haidar Zammar, Said Bahaji, and Mounir al-Motassadek. The CIA station chief in Hamburg, Tom Volz, who posed as a U.S. embassy employee, actually tried to recruit Darkazanli as an informant in late 1999 and 2000. CIA agent David Edger shadowed the Hamburg Cell for several years, before returning to the U.S. in 2001 to take a professorship of political science at Oklahoma University at Norman, coincidentally, just a few blocks from an apartment where an al-Qaeda cell operated that included 9/11 terrorists Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Zacarias Moussaoui.

remote control for humans

This was sent to me by Rich Brilliant and it does have some cool and scary possibilities.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051026/ap_on_hi_te/remote_control_for_humans&printer=1;_ylt=AgFmcC3tXJpgTozO2yaLbxhk24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Just thinki how far we could be, as a species, if we didn't have to militarize every damned thing.

tax payer bill of rights

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801837_pf.html

This is the crux of the debate:

John Andrews, a former Republican state senator who is now a commentator on state politics, maintains that Coloradans don't want to live in a high-tax, big-government venue. "Those custodially smothered paradises of California, New York, Germany, and France are what Colorado's people would rather not be like," he wrote in his column earlier this month.
Andrews argues that universities should be funded privately and that tolls or fees should pay for roads and parks. He says that medical care should be left to "self-reliance" rather than "Big Brother."
But opponents of the spending limit say certain public needs can best be met by collective action.

E mail from FEMA's man on the ground during Katrina

Is there a way to call this CRIMINAL negligence? Mike Brown was sent an email during the unfolding disaster pleading for help. the email was sent by his own guy, Marty Bahamonde. In a response to the email Bahamonde received from Brown's press secratary, he was told Brown must be allowed to eat dinner. check this link for the testimony and the response of the LIBERAL media.

http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200510210005

House Condemns Iran's Threats Against Israel

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,173845,00.html

china to make tamiflu regardless of patent talks

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TP366945.htm

i still think Miers is a decoy for Judge Janice Rogers Brown

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/politics/politicsspecial1/25confirm.html

Frist's little white lies?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-10-24-frist-holdings_x.htm

was the oklahoma suicide a terrorist attack?

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008444.php

help me collect info. If this guy was a muslim and tried to get in to the game, he was a suicide bomber.

The Gestapo is us.

http://progressive.org/mag_mc100405

notice that a regular person, the employee, turned the photos over to the police. While it's easy to blame the big bad Wal mart, try to remember that we the people have to participate in the dismantling of our freedoms. I remember when I first started at best buy, the guys in the computer repair center were all fired up because they had turned in some guy's computer to the police because they thought it had kiddie porn on it. First off should you be snooping in someone's personal property, but then you have some low level manager deciding to call police. Because I'm pretty sure the photo worker (just like the tech at best buy) isn't going to make that kind of decision.

As for the secret service what are they gonna do? They have to check out all calls. But wait till they start actually prosecuting these type of incidents.

What the ....

Let me see if I have this straight: There's not enough science to teach evolution, there's not enough science to reduce greenhouse gases, but by all means let's start talking about using the MILITARY to quarantine people for the Avian Flu (remember the SARS, West Nile, lyme disease epidemics that were reported but never came?)

Conspiracy alert

Alright. I know I'm reaching but if you looked at 1984 , the novel by Orwell, as an out come of the military/industrial complex you could see the China, the Mideast, Europe, and the US in a series of fake wars. British troops were found wearing Arab garb and planting bombs. We know about the aid given to enemies by this gov't. We give weaponry to Iraq, North Korea, Alqaeda (sp) then turn around and have wars with them.
I tell my son that he can' t keep making the same "accident" over and over without me thinking at some point , he's doing it on purpose.

and what would be the point of a bunch of powerful people running the world (Chinese, Arab, European, American) and keeping the world in turmoil? Well what's the point of Sporting franchise owners having battles over and over again with the same teams. They make money selling concessions and tix. Do you think the oil,weapons, and govt leaders (both elected and unelected) make money selling the fear, hatred and rivalry the same way Lamar Hunt makes big bucks off of me because I'm a Raider hater and I still hate John Elway.

Just a ramble but I think there maybe something there.

Weapons of mass disstraction

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/04/051004060413.1d8efpco.html

House Democrats unveil defense proposal

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1105930.php

no need to learn english in the US

http://news.webindia123.com/news/printer.asp?id=121837&cat=World

Katrina: the aftermath continued

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/27/D8CSQ34G0.html

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050927/D8CSRRJ82.html

hugo chavez stuff

check comments for listener provided stories on the Venezuelan President (dictator?).

a heroes tale

http://lonestar-mvpa.org/events/2005/05_Katrina.htm

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0922taser-ON.html

Lucky Sen.Frist makes a timely sale of stock

http://uspolitics.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://feeds.feedburner.com/Talking%2DPoints%2DMemo%3Fm=326

a katrina timeline-more to follow

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php

now we know what the republicans mean by support the troops

http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1117445.php

Rich Brilliant's final appearance at KKFI

Don't forget to tune in tomorrow night for the final appearance of Rich Brilliant before he leaves town. If you have some questions for hm you can post them here in case you don't get in to the show. I'll try to keep calls short but I'm not the best at it. Plus, 2 people in the studio often leads to more conversation and less calls. I'll be notifying him thathis is up here so he won't get sandbagged by a question or topic. and PLEASE be respectful. I'll drop strictly personal attacks. I know you guys can really mix it up (i've read all the posts) so I can tolerate a little name calling with some real questions/ critiques, but don't get carried away. or you'll get carried away.

Is that a beer in dubya's hand

http://http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/packageart/bush/bush_tsg.mov

9-11 ball dropping?

http://http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/21/abledanger.hearings/

cheater alert

http://http://www.thewbalchannel.com/politics/4999025/detail.html

your thoughts people

http://www.thomhartmann.com/radicalmiddle.shtml

an update on iraq- from john in park hill

The Wall Street Journal, 346 words Aug 29, 2005

Perhaps more impressive is that Alhurra's credibility has also grown steadily. According to ACNielsen, 77% of Alhurra viewers rate its news coverage as reliable, up from 60% last year. "Considering all the people who said no one would listen to us and no one would care," Mr. [Norman Pattiz] told us, "I think these numbers certainly prove these people incorrect." The fact that stands out to Mr. Pattiz is that "about 40% of viewers of al-Arabiya and al Jazeera watch Alhurra." Those viewers would seem to be open to an alternative perspective on Mideast events.

This from Chuck the Jagman

check comments

Did you catch Clinton on Meet The Press?

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050918/wl_afp/usweatheriraqeconomy_050918200308

Oh you'll love this

Now I understand the concern for gas supply on a national level. But ask your self "why is it the vice president doing the calling?"

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050911/NEWS05/509110304

'I could have saved her life but was denied permission'

http://http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/18/wkat318.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/18/ixhome.html

Bush suspends Davis- Bacon Act for Katrina relief

Here we go. I'm not exactly sure what the point of this is. Maybe some of you more conservative folks can explain it. What is the point of dropping the condition of fed money that people make a decent (as determined by the market in the region) salary? It seems to me that the cost of labor is going to be passed on to the federal gov't by the contractor. If they have to pay less however i'm not seeing any assurances that those savings will be passed on to the fed gov't. Especially cosidering the existence of no bid contracts.

http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/091505/labor.html

I wish I was a part of the investor class

blockbuster stock drops from a little dose of reality

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&dist=morenews&guid=%7BEFF1FABE%2D17EF%2D40F8%2D92C6%2D473A3E72226C%7D

Big Dog, Brad- consider this

From the Kansas City Star-

Inside the third-floor New Orleans apartment, Khaliee looks around and knows he and his family can survive.
They are up high, so if Hurricane Katrina does flood the streets, they’ll be safe. The freezer has enough meat, including chicken and sausage, to keep them fed. With charcoal and lighter fluid, fruit juice and bottled water, they have what they need.
He focuses on the air conditioner next.
“I turned it to 50 degrees,” Khaliee says. “I knew once the storm hit, the lights would go out and that would be it — no more air conditioner. I had to get it cool in there.”
Khaliee didn’t want to be here, making these rash decisions and riding out Katrina. He had wanted to heed the last-minute warnings and get out while they still could.
But he couldn’t. His bosses at Galatoire’s, a Bourbon Street restaurant, weren’t about to close the doors because of some storm expected late the next day.
“I was stuck,” says Khaliee, 28. “Should I leave and get fired, or stay and have a job the next day?”
He had worked at this restaurant for several years, graduating from dishwasher to cook. Denise Smart had the couple’s first child a year ago and now is about six weeks away from delivering their second boy.
So Khaliee stayed, working a double shift. He gets off around midnight and sees the gray clouds forming, feels the wind pushing harder. Now it is too late to leave.
There are no buses leaving the city, no transportation available. The fuel tank of his Buick Riviera is empty.
His mother’s apartment on New Orleans’ west bank will be their refuge. By Sunday night they are inside ready and waiting: Khaliee, Denise, 1-year-old Tyrese and Khaliee’s brother, Usamah. His mom had to stay at work at a nursing home near the apartment.

more FEMA incompetence

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4849706

" Fight or F#*K"

this is why the ACLU ain't so bad
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0916-05.htm

Interesting Rove fact

I just found out that Karl Rove was in the hospital during the hurricane. This explains why Bush was absent. he had no idea that he should lead since Karl (his mind) was out.

welcome to my world

If you are in KC you need to check us out on 90.1 FM. Saturday night into Sunday morning from 1:00 to 5:00. Starting today, I'll be posting the stories that I'll be discussing.

michelle malkin

Bush's Speech last night

"it Is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal auhority and a broader role for the armed forces"

I vehemently disagree with that. In fact what is needed here is competent leadership not patronage. Isn't it interesting that the top positions in this critical agency were filled by political appointees with little, no, or fake experience in disaster/ emergency management. What we need to ask is why this wasn't done. we don't need to just give more authority (power) to the federal government. This is the mistsake that we made post 9-11.