While we have had a ball hanging out with you this past posting/programming season, this is our time for a break to refresh ourselves, do a little sprucing up and the usual annual house cleaning.

We hope to see you back here in September for more alternative media, (liberal-leaning) commentary, classic TV and movies, as well as any other off the wall media we can dig up for your entertainment and or enlightenment. In the meantime, if you cannot avoid the chaos, enjoy it!

Lee and crew

BTW, we are aware Lee left without completing one very important piece of commentary/analysis concerning the emergence of a peculiar pattern of operation within the Obama administration. However, in his defense, not only was it his birthday week, it was going to be a negative story and we never like to end our season on a negative note. Nevertheless, you can rest assured; he will provide that story for you upon his return.

This timely leak of not so new news concerning America’s war efforts in Afghanistan saves us so much time and energy, we can break for vacation early.   This video is from  Russian Today’s coverage of the events and the possible forthcoming fallout.

The Details:

Summary

25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.

The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related details.

The document collection is available on a dedicated webpage.

The reports cover most units from the US Army with the exception of most US Special Forces’ activities. The reports do not generally cover top secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations.

Wikileaks states, they have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by their source. After further review, Wikileaks statesthose reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.

Their data is provided in HTML (web), CSV (comma-separated values) and SQL (database) formats, and was rendered into KML (Keyhole Markup Language) mapping data that can be used with Google Earth.

• Complete dump of the website, HTML format 75 MB

Kinda makes you wonder why America’s lame-stream media didn’t break this story…

In a country that now basks in revenge, retribution and retaliation with little regard anymore for redemption, reconciliation or rehabilitation, Mrs. Shirley Sherrod should serve as a true inspiration. While we could write volumes extolling the virtues she exudes in her unassuming, salt of the earth persona, it will have to suffice to say, she is more of a person than any of her dangerously simpleminded tormentors will ever be.

Once again, America was forced to look into its own reflection and once again, we are found gazing at our blemishes of inequality, fixated on the scars of hate and eventually turning away in horror from the still festering wounds of racism. Fortunately, in this rare instance, the blame and the shame have quickly been placed upon the proper loathsome perpetrators responsible for the irresponsible and reprehensible attempted character assassination of Mrs. Sherrod.

Unfortunately, being forced to witness this depressing and despicable self-examination within a short 48-hour news cycle, we found ourselves having to spend the next few days offline, piecing together a much bigger story screaming to be told. If the entire truth is to be realized, Mrs. Sherrod’s near career ending experience is only a small portion of a much larger political picture. Hidden in front of our eyes are an alarming number of events, decisions, compromises and about-faces that have formulated an even uglier revelation that must be confronted.

Since there are far too many dots, pixels and or puzzle pieces to be connected for our commentary to be clear, fair, factual, comprehensive, honest and from the heart, it is going to take more time and resources than we have to commit today. Nevertheless, we will give you a hint; it has nothing to do with race. You can expect our assessment to be ready by 07.28.10.

Incidentally, this upcoming 07.28.10 edition of Issues Under Fire will be our last program posting until after Labor Day.

We think it important to mention at this juncture that we are not here to simply poke fun at America’s intelligence capabilities without offering viable solutions to the problem at hand. Hence, we think it would make perfect sense to help alleviate America’s high unemployment problem by hiring many of the long-term unemployed as spies.

This approach will solve more than a few issues, as these people can actually spy on each other. Imagine how much money could be saved on unemployment benefits if we had individuals on the lookout for those goldbricking deadbeats, kicking it on food stamps and welfare, while chilling in cheap lodging at emergency shelters without really looking for work.

According to Republicans, there are millions of these creeps living the highlife in low places at the taxpayer’s expense. What we are proposing here, is to stimulate the economy by rooting them out and punishing the lazy bastards for being lousy bums and not the hard working hobos their lot in life should have prepared them to be.

On the other hand, we could save even more money by simply allowing the government to offshore these spy jobs to China. After all, they have a very good network already established in Hollywood, as they can have a Hollywood blockbuster copied to DVD’s and selling on the streets of Manhattan before the movie concept has even been green-lighted for production. They work cheap and they do not complain much.

If the aforementioned seems a little extreme, there is always the illegal immigrant from Mexico and Central America to consider. With millions hiding in plain view, these people are already adept at slipping past authorities, creating false documents and stealing government services, while maintaining a low profile.

Besides, after ratting out an American for not taking the first low wage job that comes his or her way, that illegal will fill that low wage vacancy with a family member who will gladly do said low wage gig for half what an American would demand, while forgoing any benefits, vacation time off or even lunch breaks. They will work from sunup to midnight and like the Chinese, they will not complain very much.

While we know you are wondering where we got the intelligence to come up with practical solutions like this for America’s most daunting issues, we are not at liberty to share that intelligence, for if we did, we would have to kill you. Yes, this is one of the perks of these shadow jobs, a license to jack a bastard at will. BTW, you are advised not to speak of this posting with anyone.

Lee, spy guy in training!

While many under and unemployed Americans await Congress’s seemingly endless debate over extending mercy aid to the most economically vulnerable, the President may have finally found an issue that will expose the GOP’s heartless hypocrisy.

We know it should be three cheers for BP’s latest reported success at capping the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico, but the problem of oil and the way Americans consume it is growing. This video should help shed some light on the often neglected back story of our efforts to keep the nation satiated

This horrible dilemma comes at a most unfortunate time, as Congress is preparing to head home for their annual month long recess. While there may be a few well meaning Congressional leaders willing to stick around to provide a semblance of caring, the brutal fact remains, the country is ill prepared to realistically consider either prospect.

However, for the sake of argument, our podcast today tries to understand the ramifications of decisions made by the Obama administration that led the country to this predictable Karmic predicament.

To feed or to fight may be a simple question to some, but finding the answer can be confounding for many.

When Barack Obama made the decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan, he probably thought the $787 billion dollar stimulus package would have yielded more jobs and economic growth by now. Had that been the case, the President would not be in the position of having to justify continuing the longest war in American history, while the long-term unemployed continue to languish on growing lines for emergency shelter, food pantries and offices for public assistance.

So it all boils down to this: Do we sacrifice to feed a starving nation through government handouts, with the hope of some mysterious economic algorithm kicking in to jump start economic progress, or do we spend endlessly tracking down al Qaeda while bribing regional” Taliban types” in this “globalist war against terror”, to protect a starving nation of goldbricking losers? All things being considered, we say at least feed the children!

Click here for the podcast!

Nevertheless, in all actuality, and fairness, it is not that far of a fall into the Kingdom of Bumdom in America these days, as many Americans start their lives not very far from that world in the first place. In today’s podcast, we try to discover how somebody enters the Kingdom of Bumdom and or how one becomes a bum, a loser, a tramp or the chronically underemployed.

With the crummy, outdated, expensive educational and advanced training opportunities that America offers to its average citizen, one can only realistically look forward to a rather marginal existence in this country under the best of circumstances. More often than not, the average Joe and to a lesser extent, Jane Nobody, has fewer options than days past, so any disruption in continuous employment could and often does spell catastrophe.If we face the hard and embarrassing numbers of those who have reportedly given up looking for work because their situation kept them at the bottom of the career ladder, we will see all the office managers, sales assistants, construction workers, maintenance crews, real estate professionals, day labors, road workers, retail sales, etc, etc, etc, facing really hard choices.

When the hard choices of the long term unemployed go from making minimum credit card payments and paying the rent or sacrificing healthcare coverage, you know they are moving closer to their new address at the intersection of Buddy Can You Spare a Buck Blvd and Losers Lane.

The purpose of this podcast is not to bleed all over our audience, as we are keenly aware of the cost involved in keeping food on the tables of folks who are no longer contributing to the base economy. Those on the political right will argue and rightly so, America is broke and we just do not have the dough to save everybody.

The Republicans are willing to chance the bootstrap philosophy, the every tub stands on its own bottom, the only the strongest should survive anyway mindset and hope enough big government haters will be with them in November.

Here is where the Republicans are willing to chance the analogy of the lost group in the desert with a limited water supply. We have stragglers weakened by the elements, hunger, thirst and illness. Hence, the difficult decisions must be made concerning continuing to provide valuable resources to those who probably cannot complete the journey, for they risk jeopardizing the prospects of the stronger members in the group. After all, we do not know how much further before we reach the next oasis.

At this point, the Republicans are reasoning that somebody has to be left behind to die. And while this “new” fiscally responsible Republican Party has a very good point to take refuge behind, we also think we should keep the human face of the problem in clear view.

Unfortunately, the human face of the long term unemployed also includes the faces of their children. Some of those little faces will be slapped in stress filled anger. The violence will not necessarily be for anything the child may have done wrong, but just because that is a face that cannot be fed today. Sometimes, a wife might not see her husband’s face for a few days because he loses face whenever facing the fact that he cannot provide the basic needs of his loved ones. If we added in all the faceless single mothers struggling alone to make ends meet, we’d have another ocean of tears to cry.

No, we think there has to be a way to help the millions of prideful Americans willing to work, while weeding out the goldbrickers willing to gamble living large on less than $300 a week. Click here for the podcast