Thursday, October 06, 2005

From the sick bed of Mike

Good evening from my sick bed. We'll start off by noting Democracy Now!

Pentagon Analyst Pleads Guilty In Israeli Spy Case
A top Pentagon analyst has pleaded guilty to handing over highly classified intelligence to members of the pro-Israeli lobbying group AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The official, Larry Franklin, also admitted for the first time that he handed over top secret information on Iran directly to an Israeli government official in Washington. Franklin said he personally met with an official from the Israeli Embassy in Washington eight times. The Washington Post reports that Franklin's guilty plea casts doubt on long-standing claims by Israeli officials that they no longer engage in any intelligence activities inside the United States. In 1987, U.S. Navy intelligence officer Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison after he admitted to spying for Israel. As part of a plea agreement Franklin pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and a third charge of possessing classified documents. He faces up to 25 years in prison. As part of the plea agreement, he has agreed to testify against the two former AIPAC officials, who are facing trial.

Now I'm still sick and spent most of the day in bed with my head under the covers. But I did have the TV on from time to time, flipping around to see how much attention this got on CNN and MSNBC. Maybe they talked and talked about it and I was on CNN when MSNBC was yacking and I was on MSNBC when CNN was yacking? Or maybe my fever is so high that I'm delerious and only think they didn't talk about it?

But I didn't hear about it and I know if Bill Clinton were president this would have been nonstop coverage with every right-wing troll crawling out from under the bridge to scream for an independent counsel and to yell and holler about how Clinton has risked national security.

Instead, we've got someone admitting they spied for a foreign government and turned classified documents over to a foreign government and the big news today is that Bully Boy says "Stay the course." Again. Even though he stayed the course in the Guard by dragging his butt to another state when he was supposed to serving in Texas champaegn unit.

Bully Boy wants us to stay the course. Even though he can't tell you what the course is, where it's leaded or what the goals are or when we might withdrawal or, hell, how we ended up over there in the first place. He can't tell Cindy Sheehan what the "noble cause" was that her son Casey Sheehan died for.

Why isn't anyone talking about Franklin? The news hits as James Yee is a guest on Democracy Now! Yee the administration slandered and falsely accused of a number of things and the corporate media played howler monkey screeching nonstop. Franklin plead guilty. Where's the big coverage of this?

Clear Channel Seeks Rewrite of Media Ownership Rules
In other media news the radio giant Clear Channel is asking Congress to ease media ownership laws to allow it to purchase more stations. Clear Channel is the country's largest radio-station operator with over 1200 stations around the country. Clear Channel wants Congress to rewrite the rules to allow a single company to own up to 12 different stations in a single market.

Clear Channel killed music in the last few years. Finally, music is starting to fight back and Clear Channel wants to have more stations. Write your Congress and tell them no, no, no to Clear Channel completely destroying the music.

I'm still sick. I did do a post last night. I went to publish and got this whole screen of error messages. Blogger was "down" for maintance so I lost everything. I called Elaine and Rebecca to warn them in case they were about to post since we all are evening posters.

Tony was great in his classroom debate last night. I was feeling like I was at death's door but I drug my sorry ass to his class for the debate and cheered him on as much as I could muster. His position was "Bring the troops home now" and he was up against this geek who loves the Bully Boy, loves him so much you got the idea he licked the toilet boy clean for the Bully Boy. Tony wiped the floor with the geek. People were applauding Tony like crazy. He's my best friend but I'm telling it like it was, Tony won that debate over and over. Great job, Tony. People are sick of the lies that got us into this war and they are sick of the nonstop war. Bully Boy wants to stay the course? Give him a gun and fly him over to Iraq.

I'll try to talk about some e-mails tomorrow night when hopefully I will feel better.

I want to close by noting this (which I saw at The Common Ills cause and Ruth saw it at WBAI and e-mailed to note it):


Condolences to Amy Goodman on the Loss of Her Grandmother,
Sonia Bock
She died Oct. 5 at the age of 108. The management and staff of WBAI sends condolences to Amy and her family. You can send messages to mail@democracynow.org.

I'm very sorry for the Goodmans loss.






Posted by at