Democracy, I would repeat, is the noblest form of government we have yet evolved, and we may as well begin to ask ourselves whether we are ready to suffer, even perish for it, rather than readying ourselves to live in the lower existence of a monumental banana republic with a government always eager to cater to mega-corporations as they do their best to appropriate our thwarted dreams with their elephantiastical conceits. ~ Norman Mailer
Leaked: The Internet must go!
Hey! Are you on the internet right now? Of course you are! Then you should definitely check out this amazing video about what the internet companies are planning.
This move could hurt both consumers and content creators--but of course would be a huge windfall for internet providers.
How weathly are Americans?
The disparity in wealth between the richest one percent of Americans and the bottom 80 percent has grown exponentially over the last thirty years — but the video, posted by user politizane and relying on data from a popular Mother Jones post, focuses on the difference between the ideal disparity that Americans would like to see and the reality.
Tax the Rich
So long! It's been fun.
Dear listeners,
In July 2011 I started a new job teaching Italian at Kansas State University. In some ways this was a return to my roots, as I taught English as a Foreign Language for 17 years in Italy. Now I am teaching English speakers Italian. I've come full circle.
This coming full circle also means the end of an attempt on my part to start a new career in my 50s. Sadly, as much as I tried to bring community radio to Manhattan, I was not successful. So I have decided to dedicate my energy and time to my first love, being an educator.
The archive of my shows will remain active - there's a lot of great content in the shows. So I hope you continue to listen and enjoy them.
Once again thank you for your support and encouragement over the five years the show was on the air. I know many feel that my program needs to be on the air and I agree with you that a diversity of voices is sorely lacking in the local media. But alas, it is not I who will bring that diversity. It will have to be someone else.
For our second hour we take up the theme of American empire in a tribute to GRIT TV which ceased operations on May 13th. First we hear GRITtv host, Laura Flanders, interviews Chris Hedges about the death of Bin Laden and the continuing concern over terrorism, the end of empathy in the U.S., and what avenues are left for progressives to fight back. Then we hear Flanders interviewing retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich about the changes in the administration and the ongoing situation in Libya and Syria, and notes that at a time when the Arab world is undergoing deep changes, it should be a time for modesty in the US and a reconsideration of military power and the use of violence to achieve goals. We close out this hour with a clip form Law and Disorder Radio featuring the award-winning independent journalist Will Potter. Potter is the leading authority on “eco-terrorism.” He’s the author of the new book, "Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege."
We hear views and perspectives not getting much air-time on corporate media - first we hear from GRITtv featuring retired US Army Colonel and former State Depatment official, Ann Wright; then we hear a clip from Law and Disorder Radio featuring Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Michael Steven Smith; and finally a clip looking at the how the media has handled the document dump from NPR's On the Media, hosts Brook Gladstone and Bob Garfield interview the executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller.
Where do the documents come from? Wikileaks had been using Tableau's hosted charting software to display visualization of the State Department cables. The company now says that it removed the charts in response to Senator Joe Lieberman's public request. Here's a copy of the chart for our readers to review.
Having spent several years looking at the undercurrents of post-war British social history — in particular the clash between the state and some of its most outspoken critics (protest movements, travellers and alternative communities) — Worthington turned his attention to the “War on Terror” in 2006. Like many decent-minded citizens of the world, he had been deeply concerned, from the moment Guantánamo opened in January 2002, that the US administration’s response to 9/11 was both cruel and misguided, but although Worthington conducted some research in the years that followed, it was not until March 2006, when he read Enemy Combatant by the released British prisoner Moazzam Begg, that he asked himself the fateful question, “Who’s in Guantánamo?” The quest to answer this question consumed over a year of his life, and led to the creation of "The Guantánamo Files."
The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, published by Pluto Press, and distributed in the US by Macmillan, includes reviews by released Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg, lawyers Clive Stafford Smith, Marc Falkoff and Candace Gorman, authors Michelle Shephard, Stephen Grey and Peter Bergen, film-maker Ken Loach, and film producer Marty Fisher. The book is available from Amazon.
This is a rebroadcast of the debate sponsored by KTWU Channel 11 and the Topeka/Shawnee County Chapter of the League of Women Voters between Cheryl Hudspeth, Democratic challenger, and Rep. Lynn Jenkins, Republican, for the second congressional district of Kansas. This debate originally aired on KTWU on October 19th. Community Bridge and KSDB thank KTWU for making this audio available for rebroadcast to our listeners.
Biggest Document Leak in History Exposes Real War
Rachel Oldroyd reports for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: "For the first time the files reveal just how much the American military detailed the escalating violence in Iraq, and how this contrasts markedly to what the politicians said in public. This is the story behind the pronouncements - the uncensored detail Washington did not want us to know."
Josh Steiber writes for Znet: "This is an anticipatory letter aimed to advise you on your response and responsibility for the coming Wikileaks release, expected on October 23rd. Based on the White House’s response to the last leak about Afghanistan, the temptation seems strong to once again divert attention away from accountability. I write as a young veteran who once fully embraced the concept of a preemptive war to keep my fellow citizens safe and, as President Bush declared, because “America is a friend to the people of Iraq.” I now hope to preempt your response to the information regarding that war in which I fought. When I learned in school about the design of the American system of government and all the noble qualities it represented, invading Iraq seemed to me, at the time, to be a surefire way to make the world a better place."
The Elephant in the Foreclosure Fraud Room: Second Liens
Zach Carter writes for AlterNet: "Investor lawsuits against mortgage servicers could be even more damaging than these other lines of legal inquiry. The four largest banks hold nearly half a trillion dollars worth of second-lien mortgages on their books - loans that could be decimated if investors successfully target improper mortgage servicing operations. The result would be major trouble for the financial system. The result would be major trouble for too-big-to-fail behemoths."
Kevin Drum reports for Mother Jones: "Noam Scheiber writes today about two different views of the recession. The first, represented by Johns Hopkins economist Chris Carroll, relies on a model that says recovery depends on three things: wealth, unemployment expectations, and access to credit. As they recover, so will the economy: 'The beauty of Carroll’s model is that it explains, with uncanny precision, consumer behavior going all the way back to the late ’60s. Those three simple variables — wealth, unemployment, and credit — tell you most of what you need to know about changes in the saving rate, and their predictive power has held up even through 2010.'"
The Perfect Storm
Robert Reich writes on the Robert Reich Blog: "It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy. First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans. The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us."
Obama Administration Handed Over Detainees Despite Reports of Torture
Angus Stickler reports for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: "President Barack Obama's government handed over thousands of detainees to the Iraqi authorities, despite knowing there were hundreds of reports of alleged torture in Iraqi government facilities. Washington was warned by the United Nations and many human rights organisations that torture was widespread in Iraqi detention centres. But the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal the US’s own troops informed their commanders of more than 1,300 claims of torture by Iraqi Security forces between 2005 and 2009."
Nadia Prupis reports for Truthout: "More than 1,000 veterans in California under 35 died after returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan between 2005 and 2008 - three times as many California service members who were killed in conflict overseas, according to a recently published Bay Citizen report. Investigative journalist Aaron Glantz studied the cases of Reuben Paul Santos, Alex Lowenstein and Elijah Warren to shed light on a growing trend among Afghanistan and Iraq veterans who have died through high-risk behavior and suicide after being discharged. In particular, veterans who returned home to California died through motorcycle and motor vehicle accidents and unintentional poisoning; in addition, veterans were two and a half times as likely to commit suicide as Californians of the same age who had not served in the military." Photo: Ken Harper / Flickr
ACLU Sues Ashcroft
ACLU reports: "In al-Kidd v. Ashcroft (10-98), the Ninth Circuit affirmed an Idaho district court and held that former Attorney General John Ashcroft could be held personally liable for damages if he adopted a post- 9/11 policy of using the material witness statute as a pretext to arrest and detain suspects without probable cause to believe that they had committed a crime. The Solicitor General’s certiorari petition is pending. The plaintiff in the case, Abdullah al-Kidd, is a 37 year-old African-American, U.S. citizen born in Kansas who converted to Islam while attending the University of Idaho, where he was a standout running back on the football team."
Lawless Courts
Jacqueline Stevens reports for The Nation: "One day in April, J. Dan Pelletier, a government adjudicator, faces a video camera in an Atlanta immigration court. At the same moment, in a Stewart Detention Center mini-court in the Georgia hinterland, two dozen men in orange and blue jumpsuits seated behind a low rail are watching Pelletier on a monitor wheeled in front of a vacant dais. Pelletier addresses the men brusquely: 'I have been told each of you has admitted the allegations and conceded removability back to your home country. Is there anybody in this group that does not want an order of removal to their home country?'"
Obama Accuses Republicans of Peddling "Snake Oil"
Caren Bohan reports for Reuters US Online Report Politics News: "President Barack Obama, fighting to keep Democrats in control of the Senate, accused Republicans on Friday of peddling discredited "snake oil ideas" about the economy. On a five-day sprint through western states, he also entered the highest profile race of the November 2 congressional elections -- a contest between Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and Republican Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle."
White House Goes into Bunker Mode
Howard Krutz writes for The Daily Beast: "Imagine if the Chilean mining disaster had happened here in the States. President Obama would have been hammered for 69 days for failing to rescue the men, right up to the moment the first one was pulled to safety. That’s the sensibility inside the White House these days: If there’s a bad story out there, even one far removed from the presidential orbit, the Obama crowd will own it. Every administration feels besieged at times, pilloried by the press, misunderstood by the public. But conversations with White House officials suggest a team that feels almost snakebit during a midterm election that is likely to produce substantial losses."
Lee Fang reports for ThinkProgress: "While the Koch brothers - each worth over $21.5 billion - have certainly underwritten much of the right, their hidden coordination with other big business money has gone largely unnoticed. ThinkProgress has obtained a memo outlining the details of the last Koch gathering held in June of this year. The memo, along with an attendee list of about 210 people, shows the titans of industry - from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real estate tycoons - working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives to plan the 2010 election, as well as ongoing conservative efforts through 2012."
NAACP Catches Ties between Tea Party, Racist Extremist Groups
Eric Dolan writes for The Raw Story: "The Tea Party movement has links to white supremacists, anti-immigration groups, 'birthers' and other 'extremists,' according to a report released by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The 94 page report, entitled Tea Party Nationalism (.pdf), investigates six national organizations "at the core" of the Tea Party: FreedomWorks Tea Party, 1776 Tea Party, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, and the Tea Party Express."
Racist Elements in the Tea Party?
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III writes for Truthout: "If there are links between the Tea Party and racist hate groups as the report indicates, then, as NAACP CEO and President Benjamin Jealous states, 'These links should give all patriotic Americans pause.' The members and leadership of the Tea Party should 'distance themselves from those Tea Party leaders who espouse racist ideas, advocate violence, or are affiliated with white supremacist organizations.' They have no place in our 'one Nation under God'; they have no place in our politics."
The Editors at The Nation write: "The GOP's lurch toward extremism extends far beyond the ideological cleansing of moderate RINOs, 'Republicans in Name Only.'... Broadening the debate is fine. But when one party pulls that debate toward extremes that even its most radical leaders have recently rejected, the prospect of political dysfunction, if not explosion, grows exponentially.... Joe Miller, running strong for an Alaska Senate seat against Murkowski, supports repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment, which provides for the direct election of senators; wants to privatize Social Security; and is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest." Photo: Flickr
SarahPAC Candidate "Should Be in Jail"
Greg Palast reports for Truthout: "'What he [Griffin] did was absolutely illegal and he should be in jail.' That's hardly the kind of endorsement a candidate for Congress expects. But that is the conclusion of voting rights attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after digging into the evidence of Congressional candidate Tim Griffin's role in directing the Republican National Committee's (RNC) racially biased attack on voters known as 'caging.' A brutal mano-a-mano race in Arkansas' Second District has become a showdown between Sarah Palin's banner carrier Griffin (funded by SarahPAC) and Democrat Joyce Elliott, who has drawn homeboy Bill Clinton back to Little Rock."
Rachel Slajda reports for Talking Points Memo: "For the most part, the Republican machine that churns out allegations of voter fraud in the weeks before an election operates in the shadows, a few steps away from the actual Republican Party. Not so in Kansas, where the Republican candidate for secretary of state is running almost entirely on a platform of preventing voter fraud, especially by illegal immigrants.The candidate, Kris Kobach, is promising to check identification at polling places, require proof of citizenship when registering and turn the secretary of state's office into an enforcement powerhouse."
How the Kansas Chamber and Corporate Special Interests Encourage Illegal Immigration
WorkingKansas.com writes: "Let’s face it, illegal aliens are not flocking to Kansas for our mild summers–and certainly not our mild winters. Illegal aliens are coming to Kansas for jobs. And a host of Kansas’ more unscrupulous employers are more than willing to put these folks to work, taking a job from one of 100,000 unemployed Kansans. And why wouldn’t they? The pay is cheap and there are no benefits. Job theft by illegal aliens takes a few different routes in Kansas. Among the most popular of those routes is the practice of misclassification. Put simply, misclassification is the practice of treating working Kansans as independent contractors instead of as employees. Many dishonest employers will deliberately classify employees as independent contracts and, in doing so, skirt filling out appropriate paperwork, such as the I-9 (immigration form) and paying taxes, workers compensation and unemployment insurance, gaining an unfair advantage over those Kansas employers who do play by the rules."
Polluter-Funded Groups Spending Almost $70 Million on Anti-Clean Energy Ads
Josh Dorner reports for ThinkProgress: "Amid an unprecedented surge in mostly secret money into this year's election campaign, a new report released yesterday by the Center for American Progress Action Fund details how 13 right-wing groups - including large secret money groups like American Crossroads, the US Chamber of Commerce, and American Action Network - have spent more than $68.5 million this year on 'misleading and fictitious televisions ads designed to shape midterm elections and advance their anti-clean energy reform agenda.'... The New York Times reports this evening that 'nearly half' of the Chamber's $149 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors. (The Chamber claims to have 300,000 members.) 'Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.'"
Maura Stephens reports for AlterNet: "In papers everywhere we hear arguments such as the one that appeared recently in the Rochester (NY) Business Journal, in an article by economist Raymond J. Keating, under the heading 'N.Y. is missing out on economic opportunity.' Keating wrote, 'Environmentalists are claiming that hydraulic fracturing threatens groundwater supplies and are using anecdotal evidence to support their claims. Yet years of evidence have demonstrated that the fracking process is safe.' This is not just misleading; it's artful misuse of the language. Or, as my mother would have put it in her habitually blunt way, it's a lie." Photo: a wellhead for hydraulic fracturing, with injection pipes. Source: dpcusa.org
The Environmental Dangers of Hydraulic Fracturing
Sara Lee writes for the Defenstrator: "Carter Road, in Dimock, Susquehanna County, has earned the nickname “ground zero,” as it gains fame in the natural gas controversy of Pennsylvania. Residents of Carter Road organized to file suit against Cabot Oil and Gas after 14 wells used for drinking water became undrinkable. (See "Passing the Buck on Water Contamination" for details of the lawsuit). While Cabot denies that deep rock fracking caused the water contamination, the company was heavily fined by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and later forced to plug three wells in Dimock."
Jon Stewart was on Larry King Live last night, and didn't let the fact that he was on CNN deter him from criticizing the network. He said to King, who is leaving CNN, "you're the last guy out of a burning building." When King asked later why Stewart picks on CNN so much, Stewart replied that it's because "you're terrible."
Faiz Shakir, Benjamin Armbruster, George Zornick, Zaid Jilani, Alex Seitz-Wald, and Tanya Somanader write the Progress Report for Think Progress: "Last week, Fox News kingpin Bill O'Reilly set off a firestorm on ABC's The View when he declared that " Muslims killed us on 9/11 " After apologizing on set, O'Reilly retreated to his safe zone at Fox News where he and his colleagues quickly defended O'Reilly's bigotry. On Monday, O'Reilly invited National Public Radio analyst and frequent Fox News contributor Juan Williams to counter his claim that "there is a Muslim problem in the world." Surprisingly, Williams told O'Reilly he was "right." Citing the "paralysis" of "political correctness," Williams admitted that when he "see[s] people who are in Muslim garb" on an airplane, "I get worried. I get nervous." Two days later, NPR fired him. Williams' statements and subsequent termination sparked wide-ranging reactions in the media over whether NPR's response was proportional or appropriate. Regardless of whether NPR should have fired Williams, it was certainly the outlet's right to do so. And given the firing of other media figures for controversial statements, NPR's decision advances the idea that there shouldn't be a double standard surrounding the treatment of Muslims by the media. As Salon's Glenn Greenwald Tweeted yesterday, "watch how many people who cheered when [previous media figures] were fired scream CENSORSHIP!! all day over Juan Williams." Within right-wing circles, that number was large. Upon word of Williams' dismissal, a myriad of conservative pundits and lawmakers immediately lambasted NPR, calling for boycotts and the governmental defunding of NPR. While Fox News made sure Williams walked away with a $2 million contract, O'Reilly is determined to suspend public funding for the outlet, declaring, "it's over for NPR. " Appearing on the O'Reilly Factor yesterday, Williams stood by his original comments. Williams' original comments could have opened a constructive dialogue about entrenched Islamophobia, if handled in a more professional manner. However, as the American Prospect's Adam Serwer notes, "it's clear from the context that Williams wasn't merely confessing his own personal fears, he was reassuring O'Reilly that he was right to see all Muslims as potential terrorists." And, in standing by such statements without any clarification, Williams fails to address what the Washington Post's Greg Sargent notes as the central issue: Williams' original "instinctual feeling" is 'irrational and ungrounded, and something folks need to battle against internally whenever it rears its ugly head.'"
First Interview with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller on Juan Williams Firing
Rodney Ho writes for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Call me lucky. I had a pre-scheduled interview this morning with NPR CEOVivian Schiller this morning before her speech at the Atlanta Press Club Newsmakers luncheon at the 191 Club in downtown Atlanta. So lo and behold, the entire Juan Williams firing blew up the past 24 hours. I happen to be the first person to talk to her about it. She basically said he was on NPR as a news analyst and wasn’t supposed to express opinions, something he had done time and time again on Fox News. This was just the final straw. Commentators, in contrast, are specifically called that on NPR and are supposed to be opinionated."
Josh Silver writes for the Huffington Post: " The reactionaries of the far-right are clawing and scratching at their latest red meat: National Public Radio's decision to fire Juan Williams for comments he made about Muslims on Fox News Channel. It's hard to work up too much sympathy for Williams -- a once esteemed journalist who has repeatedly embarrassed himself in recent years as a soloist in Bill O'Reilly's amen chorus. He was warned multiple times by NPR about providing commentary on Fox News that violated his employment contract. And his reward for the noxious comments that cost him one job was a new $2 million contract from Fox, announced Thursday."
Press Freedom Index 2010: U.S. ranks No. 20, Eritrea worst
Melissa Bell reports for the Washington Post: "Reporters Without Borders, the journalism watchdog group, released its Press Freedom Index for 2010, tracking media freedom across 178 countries. The report measures the violations of press freedom in the world, taking into account murders, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats as well as censorship, confiscation, searches and harassment. The United States remained in the same position as it occupied last year: No. 20 on the list, behind most of the Northern European countries, New Zealand, Japan and Estonia."
Media, Stop Ambushing Female Candidates
Mega Tandy writes for In These Times: "There is a fear both subtle and obvious running rampant through our news media. It is not fear of a U.S. economy stuck in recession, or more housing foreclosures, or Obama-care, or the Tea Party, or feigned socialism, or terrorist attacks, or the flu, or immigrants. It’s the fear of women—specifically, fear of women politicians and leaders. Because of this fear, female politicians, candidates and leaders face blatant sexism and misogyny in both corporate media and parts of the blogosphere for challenging the male-dominated political system."
Defend Free Speech on the Internet
Christopher Calabrese writes for Save the Internet: "In 2006, America Online censored e-mails that referenced a blog entry questioning the company’s e-mail fee system. In 2007, AT&T cut out lyrics critical of the Bush administration during its live feed of a Pearl Jam concert. That same year, Verizon Wireless decided that text messages from pro-abortion-rights group NARAL to its supporters were too “controversial,” so it cut off access to the group’s text messaging program. Preserving network neutrality means preventing these violations of free speech. An ACLU report released this week suggests that broadband carriers be held to the same “common carrier” rules that have long been applied to telephone networks, railroads and public highways. “Freedom of expression isn’t worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free,” the report points out."
Michael D. Shear report for the New York Times: "Media Matters, the liberal activist group that wages a rhetorical war against Fox News Channel and others in the conservative press, will announce on Wednesday the receipt of a $1 million donation from the philanthropist George Soros. In a statement obtained by The Caucus, the organization says it plans to use the money to intensify its efforts to hold the Fox host Glenn Beck and others on the cable news channel accountable for their reporting. “Fox has transformed itself into a 24-7 G.O.P. attack machine, dividing Americans through fear-mongering and falsehoods and undermining the legitimacy of our government for partisan political ends,” the group will say in the statement, to be released Wednesday afternoon."
Taking the Public Out of Public TV
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting reports:" A multi-part FAIR exposé of PBS's most prominent news and public affairs programs demonstrates that public television is failing to live up to its mission to provide an alternative to commercial television, to give voice to those "who would otherwise go unheard" and help viewers to "see America whole, in all its diversity," in the words of public TV's founding document. In a special November issue of studies and analyses of PBS's major public affairs shows, FAIR's magazine Extra! shows that "public television" features guestlists strongly dominated by white, male and elite sources, who are far more likely to represent corporations and war makers than environmentalists or peace advocates. And both funding and ownership of these shows is increasingly corporate, further eroding the distinction between "public" and corporate television. There is precious little 'public' left in 'public television.'" UPDATE: Sign FAIR's petition to bring back Now to Friday nights.
'Editor & Publisher' Fires Entire Editorial Staff
Greg Mitchell reports for The Nation: "Just received an e-mail from my former managing editor at Editor & Publisher (my exit came in January after 10 years) Shawn Moynihan: 'The editorial staff of Editor & Publisher has been eliminated by its new owners, Duncan McIntosh Co. inc. As such, I’m writing to let you know I am no longer E&P’s managing editor/online editor.' One of my old colleagues in the once-sturdy VNU/Nielsen magazine unit, Tony Case, was first with the news. Top editor Mark Fitzgerald and tech editor Jim Rosenberg also were axed. The new editor works for owner Duncan McIntosh who took over in January—his other titles, based in Irving, Ca., are boating and fishing magazines. Richard Prince has a more lengthy report here."
Community Bridge opens this week with Christopher Hopkins, Iraq Veteran and K-State student, in a discussion of his efforts to form a local chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and his experiences at the US Social Forum. Then Debbie Nuss, Dusty Garner, and Joshua McGinn of the Flint Hills Human Rights Project join us for an update on the proposed new anti-discrimination ordinance for the City of Manhattan. At the Human Rights and Services Board on October 14th, the radical religious right let their opposition to equality for all Manhattanites be known loud and clear. Our guest try to make sense of the what was said and bring the focus back to the real issue: LGBT people are discriminated against in Manhattan.
Community Bridge opens this week with Scott Jones in a discussion of the activities planned for Community Cultural Harmony Week 2010 that takes place the seek of September 20th. Then Breanna Clary, Ecumenical Campus Ministry, joins us in studio for a discussion of Real Food Lunch. served each Thursday between 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m and provides a healthy lunch to students from K-State.
We close out this week's show first with a clip featuring Phyllis Bennis in a discussion of the "end to the Iraq war" from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting and then hear Katrina vanden Heuvel on fighting the class war from GRITtv.
Recommended Audio: Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' Speech
Rotten Eggs and Our Broken Democracy
Amy Goodman writes for Truthdig.com: "What do a half-billion eggs have to do with democracy? The massive recall of salmonella-infected eggs, the largest egg recall in U.S. history, opens a window on the power of large corporations over not only our health, but over our government. While scores of brands have been recalled, they all can be traced back to just two egg farms. Our food supply is increasingly in the hands of larger and larger companies, which wield enormous power in our political process. As with the food industry, so, too, is it with oil and with banks: Giant corporations, some with budgets larger than most nations, are controlling our health, our environment, our economy and increasingly, our elections."
Paul B. Farrel writes for MarketWatch.com: "'How my G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy.' Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, Four Deformations of the Apocalypse. Get it? Not 'destroying.' The GOP has already 'destroyed' the U.S. economy, setting up an 'American Apocalypse.' Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies. But what this indictment by a party insider -- someone so close to the development of the Reaganomics ideology -- says about America, helps all of us better understand how America's toxic partisan-politics 'holy war' is destroying not just the economy and capitalism, but the America dream. And unless this war stops soon, both parties will succeed in their collective death wish."
Banks' Self-Dealing Super-Charged Financial Crisis
Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger report for ProPublica: "Over the last two years of the housing bubble, Wall Street bankers perpetrated one of the greatest episodes of self-dealing in financial history. ... Faced with increasing difficulty in selling the mortgage-backed securities that had been among their most lucrative products, the banks hit on a solution that preserved their quarterly earnings and huge bonuses: They created fake demand."
Robert Scheer writes for Truthdig.com: "Barack Obama and the Democrats he led to a stunning victory two years ago are going down hard in the face of an economic crisis that he did nothing to create but which he has failed to solve. That is somewhat unfair because the basic blame belongs to his predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who let the bulls of Wall Street run wild in the streets where ordinary folks lived. And there was universal Republican support in Congress for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that produced this debacle." Photo: White House / Pete Souza - President Barack Obama, in background, talks on the phone in the Oval Office earlier this month as National Economic Council Director Larry Summers listens in.
Speculation and the New Commodity Price Crisis: Separating the Wheat From the Chaff
Steve Suppan provides the following news analysis for TripleCrisis.com: "Wheat prices had been climbing prior to the August 5 announcement of a Russian wheat export ban. Kansas Board of Trade wheat futures contracts had gone from $4.92 a bushel on June 10 to spike at $7.95 a bushel on August 5, prompting a reporter to ask, 'How could a Russian drought in the age of instant information escape the world's notice until the country's wheat crop was devastated?' This excellent question does not yet have a clear answer."
Zach Carter reports for AlterNet: "The Treasury Department's plan to help struggling homeowners has been failing miserably for months. The program is poorly designed, has been poorly implemented and only a tiny percentage of borrowers eligible for help have actually received any meaningful assistance. The initiative lowers monthly payments for borrowers, but fails to reduce their overall debt burden, often increasing that burden, funneling money to banks that borrowers could have saved by simply renting a different home."
Let's Be Honest about Taxes
Ruth Marcus writes for Trughtdig.com: "I was pretty tough on House Minority Leader John Boehner the other day, and I don’t regret a word, but the Ohio Republican made one important suggestion that’s worth highlighting. It’s about the obscure-sounding but increasingly costly subject of tax expenditures."
Hawks Box in Obama on Afghan War
Ray McGovern comments for Consortium News: "Just back from Afghanistan, Marine Commandant, Gen. James Conway held a news conference to add his voice to the Pentagon campaign to disparage the July 2011 date President Barack Obama set for U.S. troops to begin leaving Afghanistan."
Adam Weinstein writes for Mother Jones: "Seven and a half years after the invasion of Iraq, the last American "combat brigade" picked up stakes and left the country in mid-August. Come September 1, Operation Iraqi Freedom will just be another campaign for the history books. In its place: Operation New Dawn. Time to break out the "Mission Accomplished" banner! Not so fast. The United States is keeping nearly 50,000 troops in Iraq—the fewest since the war started in March 2003, but still enough to fill a stadium. What else are we leaving behind? It's more than just Humvees and huge bases. Here's a photographic tally of the human, financial, and political impacts being left in our wake in Iraq." Photo: US Marine Corps photo by Corporal Bobbie A. Harris / Creative Commons
10 Needed Steps for Obama to Start Dismantling America's Gigantic, Destructive Military Empire
Chalmers Johnson writes (via AlterNet): "However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union."
Kevin Drumm writes for Mother Jones: "MoJo's Suzy Khimm, on sabbatical over at Ezra Klein's place, has a post today that sets out the current state of play on E-Verify, an electronic system designed to prevent employers from hiring illegal aliens. The good news is that the system has gotten better over time: the initial error rate for authorized workers is now only 0.8%, and that error rate drops very close to zero when results are contested. Error rates for foreign-born workers were a bit higher, but this has also improved considerably over the past couple of years. (The full report is here.) Photo: Mother Jones
Are Arizona's Political Leaders Deliberately Blocking Electronic Voting Machine Transparency?
Denis G. Campbell provides the following news analysis for Truthout: "Why did Arizona's two main gubernatorial candidates, Gov. Jan Brewer, former secretary of state/head of elections, who contracted for highly criticized and easily-hacked Diebold and Sequoia ballot scanning systems, and Attorney General (AG) Terry Goddard, with his three-year 'criminal investigation' into a 2006 Pima County (Tucson) local election allegedly hacked, according to a whistleblower, do everything in their power for years to stifle polling accountability while expensively fighting enforcement of Arizona's election laws?"
Laura Sofen writes for Teaching Tolerance: "I used to be a bad girl. I was self-destructive, angry and fearless. These traits, coupled with a decent amount of intelligence, took me to all the places bad girls go. For many years, I bounced from bad decisions to bad jobs to bad relationships. My life was a mess for a long time, and all I knew how to do was make it worse. I couldn’t talk to my mother, my father wasn’t around, and my friends were either victims of their own circumstances or they were busy creating better lives for themselves. I was alone for a long time, and it felt like I would drown forever."
Paul Krugman writes for Truthout: "The biggest problem dogging American politics and media isn’t a deficiency of expertise or a lack of good intentions. It’s a lack of courage. But there is courage out there — and it should be honored. Kudos should go to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who amid fierce criticism publicly defended Muslims who were looking to build a community center in lower Manhattan. Also to Fareed Zakaria, the Newsweek columnist and CNN host, for making a case for tolerance by returning an award given to him five years ago by the Anti-Defamation League. He did so after the Jewish organization released a statement on July 30 maintaining that the planned Islamic center, which includes a mosque, should be relocated because it is too close to the site of the World Trade Center." Photo: David Shankbone
Alan Simpson, Senator Guttermouth, Spews Again
William Greider writes for The Nation: "Retired Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, who inherited a soft-cushion career in politics from his father, is a garrulous old crank who at 79 seems desperate for attention. Simpson likes to pop off provocatively. He cannot resist mocking lesser mortals like Social Security recipients with mean-spirited ridicule. Simpson is an always quotable darling of Washington reporters, who mistake his nastiness for straight talk, who are too lazy to check out his ugly distortions."
Covert Operations: The Billionaire Koch Brothers' War Against Obama
Jane Mayer writes for the New Yorker: "Members of the John Birch Society developed an interest in a school of Austrian economists who promoted free-market ideals. Charles and David Koch were particularly influenced by the work of Friedrich von Hayek, the author of “The Road to Serfdom” (1944), which argued that centralized government planning led, inexorably, to totalitarianism. Hayek’s belief in unfettered capitalism has proved inspirational to many conservatives, and to anti-Soviet dissidents; lately, Tea Party supporters have championed his work. In June, the talk-radio host Glenn Beck, who has supported the Tea Party rebellion, promoted “The Road to Serfdom” on his show; the paperback soon became a No. 1 best-seller on Amazon. (Beck appears to be a fan of the Kochs; in the midst of a recent on-air parody of Al Gore, Beck said, without explanation, “I want to thank Charles Koch for this information.” Beck declined to elaborate on the relationship.)"
In Ken We Trust: Why do Ken Cuccinelli's legal opinions always match his personal ambitions?
Dahlia Lithwick writes for Slate: "It must be Wednesday, because Virginia's hyperactive attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, is back in the news. Of course, he was also in the news on Tuesday, on Monday, and last Friday. Religious displays on public land, abortion, immigration, climate change. Is there a single issue from the culture wars over which Cuccinelli hasn't picked a fight? But that's one of the perils of treating one's elected office like a Fox News show: If Cuccinelli isn't launching five national ideological battles per week, his ratings might slip. And so ever onward he trudges, devoting his every working day to treating the commonwealth like it's the Lord's Disneyland.
Stephanie Mencimer writes for Mother Jones: "For a guy who loves chalkboards and slogans, Glenn Beck has issued a peculiar edict to potential attendees of his "Restoring Honor" rally at the Lincoln Memorial being held this Saturday. He has repeatedly told people coming to DC not to bring political signs. What? No signs? The hallmark of the last year's worth of tea party rallies that he helped fuel? But it's true. In an info packet on his website about the rally, Beck instructs, 'Please refrain from bringing signs (political or otherwise) as they may deter from the peaceful message we are bringing to Washington.'" Photo: Truthout
Could This Be A Crime? U.S. Climate Bill Is Dead While So Much Life On Our Earth Continues To Perish
Subhankar Banerjee, Climate StoryTellers: "Consider for a moment the top two carbon sinks of our planet. Oceans absorb more than 25 percent of the CO2 humans put in the air, and forests absorb almost the same amount. By doing so, our forests and oceans together make living possible on this earth for life as we know it now. All of that is changing rapidly and for the worse."
Russell Mokhiber reports for Corporate Crime Reporter: "Factory farms makes you sick. Let us count the ways. Just last week, more than half a billion eggs recalled. Why? Salmonella poisoning. More than 1,300 people sick. Just last week, a recall of more than 380,000 pounds of deli meat products distributed nationwide to Wal-Mart stores. Why? Possible contamination with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. The bacteria can cause listeriosis – a rare but potentially deadly disease. Move over Animal Farm."
Why Is Obama Siding with Polluters?
Kate Sheppard reports for Mother Jones: "The Obama administration has repeatedly vowed that tackling climate change is among its top priorities. But in a landmark legal case that could force the nation's dirtiest power plants to clean up their acts, the administration this week sided with some of the biggest polluters in the country. This latest development has left a number of environmental advocates wondering whose side the White House is really on when it comes to global warming."
Blogger Booman writes on Booman Tribune (via AlterNet): "There is not a single black or openly gay Republican in Congress or in any of the 50 governor’s mansions around the country. Conservatives do not like black people and they actively legislate against gay people. The contempt from the left is for people who are willing to trade their dignity and rights for a paycheck. It’s a strange kind of bigotry that expects people to hold a belief system that isn’t hateful towards themselves."
Facebook Now Believes It Owns the English Language, Too
Tom Scocca writes for Slate: "Facebook, the data-mining and junk-software-marketing Internet behemoth, is suing a startup in Northbrook, Illinois, because the new company plans to use '-book' in its name, according to a Tribune report. The startup, Teachbook.com, is meant to help teachers 'share lesson plans and other resources,' and has 'fewer than 20 users signed up.'"
Karl Bode writes for DLSReports.com: "We've explored how the Goorizon alliance is the regulatory equivalent of a bobble-head doll: cute and stuffed largely with air, but primarily designed to pre-empt tougher consumer protections. Worse perhaps, Google and Verizon's defense of their proposal has been one distortion after another, the companies insisting the weak-kneed framework is solely about empowering the consumer, and has nothing to do with keeping wireless consumer protections away from their tablet/smartphone Android partnership." Photo: DoomDaily.com
Net Neutrality argument Names the Wrong Villain
The Boston Globe writes in an editorial: "IN HIS Aug. 21 response to your editorial “After Google-Verizon fizzle, FCC should force Net neutrality,’’ Phil Kerpen, a vice president with Americans for Prosperity (Orwell would be proud) would have us believe that the threat of government censorship is reason enough to keep the Internet “unregulated’’ (“FCC should not upend decade of sound Net policy,’’ Letters). Issuing dire predictions of an Internet controlled by the government is a transparent attempt to harness the current mood of the nation. The argument, however, names the wrong villain."
In Minnesota, Hundreds Urge FCC to Protect Net Neutrality
Jenn Ettinger reports for SavetheInternet.com: "It was standing room only at South High in Minneapolis on Thursday night as more than 750 people turned out to show their support for Net Neutrality and free speech online. FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn listened to hours of impassioned public testimony about the future of the Internet."
Matthew Lasar writes for Ars Technica: "'I believe that net neutrality is the First Amendment issue of our time,' declared Democratic Senator Al Franken at Thursday's public hearing on the Internet, held in his home state of Minnesota. 'Unless it's freedom of religion,' he added, 'which, until last week, I thought we had kind of worked out.' The audience at Minneapolis' South High School cracked up over Franken's reference to the Ground Zero Mosque slugfest. But this was a warm-up rally for their own cause—getting the Federal Communications Commission to pass rules that would partially reclassify ISPs as common carriers and apply various neutrality provision to their activities. Two Democratic members of the FCC also attended the event: Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn." Photo: Ars Technica
Steven Hill writes for Truthdig.com: "That modern-day guild known as “economists” has been on a self-righteous rampage lately. This latest rash of finger-wagging was kicked off by the Greek debt crisis. Looking at tiny Greece, these economic Cassandras foresee a menacing future for the entire global economy if President Barack Obama and Europe don’t rein in their budget deficits." Photo: AP / Mark Lennihan
Funding Public Services Is the Best Route to Prosperity
Political Economy Research Institute reports (via Truthout): "The New England states, can no longer afford to spend scarce resources on tax credits and other business giveaways. Instead, the region needs to focus its economic development efforts on rebuilding neglected infrastructure and improving education for people at all levels, from pre-school youngsters to older adult workers. Those are the conclusions of a new study released today by economist Jeffrey Thompson of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Thompson's paper is based on his extensive analysis of research on what works and doesn't work to create jobs and strengthen state and regional economies. It suggests a better approach to economic development, one that the New England states should pursue as they slowly dig out from the Great Recession that began in late 2007."
New Study Identifies Revenues for Doubling of Social Security Payout: Guaranteeing the American Dream with Expanded Social Security
Steven Hill reports for CommonDreams.org: "For millions of Americans, the dream of a secure retirement has been threatened by the Great Recession. Since WWII, retirement has been conceived as a "three-legged stool," with the three legs being Social Security, pensions, and personal savings centered around homeownership. But today most private sector employers have quit providing pensions, and state and local government’s public pensions are drastically underfunded. In addition, a collapsed housing and stock market, combined with increased inequality even before the Great Recession, have drastically reduced Americans’ personal savings."
Paul Krugman writes for the New York Times: "Social Security turned 75 last week. It should have been a joyous occasion, a time to celebrate a program that has brought dignity and decency to the lives of older Americans. But the program is under attack, with some Democrats as well as nearly all Republicans joining the assault. Rumor has it that President Obama’s deficit commission may call for deep benefit cuts, in particular a sharp rise in the retirement age."
Raj Goyle Social Security Pledge and Why It Matters
Stuart Elliot writes for the Kansas Free Press: "Saturday at the Wichita Hyatt, in front of a crowd of nearly 200 people at Demofest, State Rep. Raj Goyle, candidate for Congress representing the 4th District, signed a pledge promising to work to strengthen and protect Social Security. The event came on the 75th Anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signing the bill into law. "
There's Nothing Wrong With Social Security That Taxing the Rich Fairly Wouldn't Fix
Dave Lindorff comments for This Can't Be Happening: "New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman, in his column today, is right to expose the attacks on Social Security as being the work of right-wing ideologues eager to destroy a government program that works, backed by cowardly Democrats who want to show their fiscal 'responsibility' by getting tough with future pensioners."
Henry A. Giroux writes for Truthout: "As the link between the media and corporate power becomes more integrated, the visual theater of terror mimics the politics of the 'official' war on terror. Echoing the discourse of the 'official' war on terror, the violence of extremist groups as well as state-sanctioned and corporate violence are understood almost exclusively within the discourse of moral absolutes pitting good against evil."
The Guns of August
Chalmers Johnson writes for TomDispatch: "In 1962, the historian Barbara Tuchman published a book about the start of World War I and called it The Guns of August. It went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. She was, of course, looking back at events that had occurred almost 50 years earlier and had at her disposal documents and information not available to participants. They were acting, as Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara put it, in the fog of war."
Last U.S. Combat Brigade Pulls Out Of Iraq
Associated Press reports via The Huffington Post: "As their convoy reached the barbed wire at the border crossing out of Iraq on Wednesday, the soldiers whooped and cheered. Then they scrambled out of their stifling hot armored vehicles, unfurled an American flag and posed for group photos. For these troops of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, it was a moment of relief fraught with symbolism. Seven years and five months after the U.S.-led invasion, the last American combat brigade was leaving Iraq, well ahead of President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending U.S. combat operations there."
Ray McGovern comments for ConsortiumNews.com: "I need to speak out now because I have been sickened watching the Herculean effort by Official Washington and our Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) to divert attention from the violence and deceit in Afghanistan, reflected in thousands of U.S. Army documents, by shooting the messenger(s) - WikiLeaks and Pvt. Bradley Manning." Photo: Jeff Kubina
Other Countries Probing Bush-era Torture — Why Aren't We?
Shashank Bengali reports for McClatchy News: "In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a Canadian man who contends that U.S. authorities mistook him for an al Qaida operative in 2002 and shipped him to a secret prison in Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cables and held in a grave-like cell for 10 months. Four years earlier, however, the Canadian government had concluded an exhaustive inquiry and found that the former prisoner, Maher Arar, was telling the truth. Canada cleared Arar of all ties to terrorism and paid him $10 million in damages, and his lawyers say he's cooperating with an investigation into the role of U.S. and Syrian officials in his imprisonment and reported torture."
Immigration and Drugs Along the Mexico/Guatemala Frontier
Andrew Eller, Council on Hemispheric Affairs: "Americans' demand for drugs affects the daily lives of local residents living far south of Mexico. Huge quantities of drugs pass through the Central American land bridge on their trip to consumers in North America. The three northernmost countries of Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, have the highest murder rates in the region, much higher than those in adjacent Mexico."
Feds Threaten to Sue Sheriff Arpaio
Suzy Khimm reports for Mother Jones: "The Justice Department is threatening to sue the infamous Joe Arpaio—the Arizona sheriff who's vowed to persecute any illegal immigrants who've crossed his path—for failing to cooperate with federal investigators. As the Washington Post explains, the feds want to determine whether Arpaio is responsible for "discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures," and discriminating against Hispanic inmates in jail."
Ground Zero for Tolerance
Robert Scheer writes for Truthdig.com: "Are the Republicans terminally stupid or are they just playing the dangerous fool? In either case, the irrational attack on Muslims everywhere by the GOP’s leadership is not only deeply subversive with regard to the American ideal of religious tolerance but also poses a profound threat to our national security. Nor does it help that some top Democrats like Harry Reid are willing to demean Muslims even as we fight two wars in which victory depends on our ability to convey a respect for their religion."
Gene Lyons writes for Salon.com: "Maybe Republican savants who want to repeal the 14th Amendment should refudiate the First Amendment while they’re at it. That would simplify things enormously. No more of this foolishness about due process and equal protection of the law. A citizen would be anybody Sen. Lindsey Graham and Newt Gingrich deem worthy. Wetback children and Muslims need not apply."
Tipping Points, Are We Headed Toward Theocratic Fascism?
Steven Jonas writes for BuzzFlash: "Back on March 21, 2007, in a column on The Political Junkies.net, the predecessor webmagazine to TPJmagazine.us, I speculated that perhaps the primary objective of the Iraq Invasion from the beginning was not "oil and bases" which so many of us figured it was when the war was commenced. Rather, I then surmised, it was to establish the basis for Permanent War. At that time I thought that the reason for doing this was political, to establish the basis for Karl Rove's dream of a Permanent Republican Majority. The real purpose of the so-called "Surge" in my view, an action that was strongly opposed by none other than James Baker et al and Bob Gates (see the article referenced above), was to establish the on-the-ground implementation of that strategy."
The Young Turks is the country's pre-eminent new media talk show, covering news, politics, pop culture and lifestyle. They comment on Dr. Laura's resignation from her radio show.
Why Dr. Laura Can't Say Whatever She Wants
Elon James White writes for Salon.com: "White people saying "nigger." That's always pleasant, right? White people saying "nigger" while minimalizing the feelings of racism? Even more pleasant. Like a massage. A really racist massage. The drama that has been this past week's news cycle due to someone simply expressing her right to free speech (if you go by Dr. Laura's resignation interview on CNN) has once again brought race to the forefront of American media. The popular memes of "blacks can say it, why can't whites?" and "No one should use the word!" are running rampant throughout the blogosphere. The underlying uncomfortableness of the discussion of "nigger" being in the everyday American vernacular comes from the underlying uncomfortableness of blacks being in everyday America."
Regulatory Agencies' Attempts to Sweep Oil Under the Rug Raise Questions
Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch: "'A recent report by the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center (a collaboration between the federal government and BP) claiming that only 25 percent of spilled oil remains in the Gulf has been refuted by researchers with the Georgia Sea Grant and University of Georgia, who released a report yesterday concluding that in fact nearly 80 percent of the oil remains in the Gulf. The report confirms the fact that the federal government should have taken a more cautious and responsible approach to testing marine life before opening the Gulf for fishing.'"
Kate Sheppard reports for Mother Jones: "When the federal government released its report claiming that the vast majority of the oil in the Gulf has disappeared on August 4, I noted that the official report "doesn't include much in the way of specifics on the supporting data used to reach these conclusions." I've repeatedly asked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which took the lead on the report, for more of the supporting data. Those requests have not been fulfilled. Heck, I can barely even get anyone to return a call over there. A spokesperson finally told me today that she would look into whether the supporting information on the report would be made public." Photo by d3 Dan, via Flickr.
Christine Mathias writes for Salon.com: "Today we herald the 90th anniversary of our right to vote, ladies, and with that comes a modicum of responsibility. With great power, yadda yadda yadda. American women tend to take a great deal for granted: We can work, own land, drive our own cars (alone), walk the streets with our arms and legs on display and get pregnant without relying on the presence of a penis (sorry, Bill O'Reilly). All of these inalienable rights have set us apart from present-day women in hundreds of countries. We can cheat on our spouses without being stoned to death. We can express heteroflexibility more readily than men. We can lie, cheat, steal and maim our way to the top of the corporate ladder. Just like boys!"
US Chamber: Equal Pay “a Fetish for Money,” Women Should “Choose the Right Partner at Home”
Michael Whitney writes for FireDogLake: "The US Chamber of Commerce has apparently spent too much time watching Mad Men: in a blog post this morning, Chamber blogger Brad Peck called women’s fight for pay equity to be nothing more than a 'fetish for money,' and said women complaining about their pay should focus instead on 'choosing the right partner at home.' The Chamber’s Peck also approvingly quoted a post that asked, 'Should government force gym-man to share his beautiful babes with couch-potato man?' This is all in a post on the Chamber’s blog called: “Equality, Suffrage, and a Fetish for Money.” You can’t make it up.
Your Fears Confirmed: "Up to" Broadband Speeds Are Bogus
Nate Anderson reports for Ars Technica: "Broadband providers in the US have long hawked their wares in "up to" terms. You know—"up to" 10Mbps, where "up to" sits like a tiny pebble beside the huge font size of the raw number. In reality, no one gets these speeds. That's not news to the techno-literate, of course, but a new Federal Communications Commission report (PDF) shines a probing flashlight on the issue and makes a sharp conclusion: broadband users get, on average, a mere 50 percent of that "up to" speed they had hoped to achieve."
When clicking on a page link, you will need to scroll down past the video feeds to see the content of the page selected.
Subscription services
Subscribe today to receive Community Bridge's print postings as an e-mail in your In-box. Stay informed with what's happening in the progressive press by simply clicking the following link: Posts (Atom)
You can subscribe to Community Bridge's podcasts using either of the following choices: Using RSS withor via I-Tunes. Click your preference and our shows will arrive to you directly.
Community Bridge supports:
since 1 January 2009
Promoting Change
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From "Beyond Vietnam," an address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church, 4 April 1967 in New York City.
Community Bridge won two first place awards at the 2010 Kansas Association of Broadcasters collegian competition for public affairs programming and for documentaries.
First place for public affairs programming was awarded to An Interview with Marci Penner, in which we explored the wonders of Kansas. Penner is the Executive Director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation. We discuss the mission of the foundation, how it works to help small communities thrive, and the quest for perfect pie.
Our first place documentary, Voices from the National Equality March, captures the essence of participating in Equality Across America's march in Washington on October 11, 2009. In order of appearance we hear: Cleve Jones; Courage Camp participants; voices from 15th and I Streets; Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC; Reverend Troy Perry; Robin McGehee and Kip Williams; David Mixner, Corrine Mina; Tobias Packer; Aiyi’nah Ford; Mario Nguyen, Lady Gaga, Billy Myer and Dave Koz; Maxin Thorne; Julian Bond; Kate Clinton; Urvashi Vaid; and conclude with the voices of the DC Gay Men’s Chorus. C-Span has recorded all the speakers at the rally. Visit: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/video.php?progid=213759 to watch.
In 2008 the Kansas Association of Broadcasters awarded Community Bridge it's First Place Award for public affairs programming for the program entitle The Kansas Stem Cell Debate.
This episode of Community Bridge features Brad Kemp, Executive Director of Kansans for Lifesaving Cures and Dr. Mark Weiss of the K-State School of Veterinary Medicine in a discussion of the issues around stem cell research
Kansans for Lifesaving Cures' policy position is that any stem cell research, therapies or cures that are permitted by federal law should be allowed in Kansas – provided that such activities are conducted ethically and safely and do not involve human reproductive cloning.
Community Bridge also received First Place in 2007 for public affairs programming for Evolutionary Faith. Join our guests: John Carlin, Roman Catholic theologian; Keith Miller, Assistant Professor of Geology at KSU; and, Boo Tyson, MAINstream Coalition in a discussion of evolution, faith and reason.
With over 30 years of publishing under its belt, and more than 55,000 subscribers worldwide, the New Internationalist is renowned for its radical, campaigning stance on a range of world issues, from the cynical marketing of babymilk in the Majority World to human rights in Burma.
Podcasts for 2011
For a complete listing of 2010 shows, please click on the 2010 page link above.
May 19 - GOP's War on Women
It’s almost an unbelievable figure — 916. That’s the amount of legislation that has been introduced primarily by the GOP so far this year, in an attempt to regulate a woman’s reproductive system. And Kansas is no different that the national trend. With tens of millions of Americans unemployed, states facing dire fiscal situations, and more and more people loosing their homes, one has to ask why abortion has become the GOP's number one priority?
A report by The Guttmacher Institute, finds that in addition to these laws, more than 120 other bills have been approved by at least one chamber of the legislature, and some interesting trends are emerging. As a whole, the proposals introduced this year are more hostile to abortion rights than in the past: 56% of the bills introduced so far this year seek to restrict abortion access, compared with 38% last year. Three topics—insurance coverage of abortion, restriction of abortion after a specific point in gestation and ultra sound requirements—are topping the agenda in several states and all three have been approved by the Kansas legislature. For the complete Guttmacher report, click here.
For our second hour we take up the theme of American empire in a tribute to GRIT TV which ceased operations on May 13th. First we hear GRITtv host, Laura Flanders, interviews Chris Hedges about the death of Bin Laden and the continuing concern over terrorism, the end of empathy in the U.S., and what avenues are left for progressives to fight back. Then we hear Flanders interviewing retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich about the changes in the administration and the ongoing situation in Libya and Syria, and notes that at a time when the Arab world is undergoing deep changes, it should be a time for modesty in the US and a reconsideration of military power and the use of violence to achieve goals. We close out this hour with a clip form Law and Disorder Radio featuring the award-winning independent journalist Will Potter. Potter is the leading authority on “eco-terrorism.” He’s the author of the new book, "Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement Under Siege."
Community Bridge opens this week with our third round table discussion on the state of the media in Kansas. Joining the discussion are Mike Shields, Managing Editor of the Kansas Health Institute's News Service; Justin Kendall, weekly writer for the KC Pitch, the largest of alternative weeklies in Kansas; Michael Caddell, newspaper publisher, blogger and radio talk show host; and R. J. Dickens, news director at KCTU TV in Wichita.
Andrew Breitbart has no problem lying to his readers, especially if he can score points against progressives. Breitbart's website BigGovernment.com is famous for promoting heavily edited videos that turn truth on its head that are produced by anti-abortion rights activist Lila Rose and falsely claiming that the video proves that Planned Parenthood engages in systemic criminal activities. In 2009, Breitbart promoted heavily edited tapes that he falsely claimed showed systematic corruption at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) related to child prostitution and sex trafficking. In 2010, Breitbart posted heavily edited video of Shirley Sherrod speaking at an NAACP function and falsely suggested that Sherrod discriminated against a white farmer in her capacity as the Agriculture Department's Georgia Director of Rural Development. This video caused her to lose her job, but Sherrod is now suing Breitbart.
Then in April, just a week after he promised to "go after the teachers and the union organizers," his website started running a series of choppy, heavily edited videos taken from labor studies courses taught at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Missouri-Kansas City by this week’s guest, Judy Ancel and a colleague, Don Giljim. Ancel is the Director of UMKC's Institute for Labor Studies. Breitbart's posts promoting these videos claim, among other things, that the professors "instruct students on how fear, intimidation, and, even, industrial sabotage are important and, often, necessary tools," and that they teach their students that the US flag is "racist." But as listeners will hear, this is just another lie by a right-wing fanatic as Ancel exposes Breitbart's tactics and his dishonesty on this week’s show.
Since the 1980´s, Sister Cities has built people-to-people solidarity relationships between the United States and El Salvador. These relationships are the core of their work and the foundation upon which the Sister City project works for human rights, social justice, and cultural exchange. This important work only happens through hundreds of dedicated volunteers in cities around the United States who maintain “sister city” relationships with Salvadoran communities. On this week’s show, we hear from Sara Bishop, national coordinator of the US - El Salvador Sister City Project, about the Sister City program. Then we hear from Sofia Pablo-Hoshino, Shahna Campbell and Ivone Damian, three of the fourteen K-State student who when to El Papaturro, the Salvadorian community coupled with the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice since 1995 through the Sister City program. The students talk about their experiences with in El Salvador and the plans to return in 2012.
In our second hour we first hear from Dr. Vandana Shiva is a clip from GRITtv. Shiva says: "The American people should see that corporations have abandoned them long ago." Shiva is a scientist, environmentalist, and food justice activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. Shiva was named one of the seven most influential women in the world by Forbes magazine. Shiva spoke at K-State in October 2009 and the podcast of her speech is available on the Community Bridge website. Click on the link to the 2009 podcasts and scroll down to October.
Then we hear a clip from Truthdig Radio featuring Tim Canova, the Betty Hutton Williams Professor of International Economic Law and co-director of the Center for Global Law & Development at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. Canova takes on the Standards and Poors treat to downgrade the US credit rating in a discussion of the economic meltdown in our casino economy. The show closes out addressing the Manhattan City Commission’s vote to repeal the new anti-discrimination ordinance.
MP3 File
April 28 - Living in a Fact-Free Political World
Community Bridge opens this week with a look at lying as normative political discourse. Political lying has always been with us, but what the GOP and some Democrats have done is akin to carpet-bombing the truth. Mother Jones Magazine turns its investigative eyes on this reality in its May/June edition entitled: You Lie! Inside the GOP’s Fact Free Nation. We hear from Rick Perlstien whose article “Fact-Free Nation from Nixon’s Dirty Tricksters to James O’Keefe’s Video Smears: How political lying became the new normal," opens the topic.
Perlstien is the author of two noteworthy books: Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, and Before The Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, which won the 2001 Los Angeles Times Book Award for history. From the summer of 2003 until 2005 he covered the presidential campaigns as chief national political correspondent for the Village Voice. He has also published The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo: How the Democrats Can Once Again Become America's Dominant Political Party, an essay with responses from commentators including Robert Reich, Elaine Kamarck, and Ruy Teixeira. In 2006 and 2007 he wrote a biweekly column for The New Republic Online. Perlstein was a senior fellow at the Campaign for America's Future, for whom he wrote the blog The Big Con.
The hour closes out with Josh McGinn, Flint Hills Human Rights Project, discussing the what’s happening with the Manhattan City Commission and the efforts by the right-wing extremists Matta and Butler to repeal the city’s recently passed Anti-discrimination Ordinance.
David Solnit first became involved in creating change in high school when he joined a campaign to abolish draft registration. Since then, the California-based carpenter, activist, and puppeteer, has been on the frontlines of direct action, protesting the US role in Central America in the 1980s, free trade deals and the WTO in the 1990s, and, more recently, the US intervention in Iraq. Solnit is a co-founder of Art and Revolution, a loose-knit collective that combines art and theater with direct action. This creativity-with-a-purpose stands in a colorful tradition of theatrical dissent from the Diggers, the Yippies, and the French Situationists of the 1960s. Solnit and his predecessors subvert the system by pointing to alternatives, using blatant contrast they show how fundamentally flawed the “normal” state of affairs truly is.
Community Bridge opens with representatives of Morning Star, Inc., a consumer run organization (CRO). CROs are not-for-profit organizations, run by current and former consumers of mental health services. Richard Stitt, Executive Director and Elizabeth Stitt, Community Transition Coordinator at Morning Star, Inc., will join us to discuss this important community service. Then David Bacon, union activist, journalist, and immigration rights advocate has a conversation with Community Bridge host Christopher Renner. Bacon presented the spring Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice lecture at K-State on February 28th.
Community Bridge opens this week with our follow up to last month's panel discussion on the state of the media in Kansas. This week we take up the issue of conservative bias on the op-ed pages have how that affects reporting in general. We touch on the issue of think tanks and how their talking points help determine what is said on the editorial pages. Panelists also explore the role of Net Neutrality in providing people with access to diverse opinions and its role in a health democracy. We also hear about the National Conference for Media Reform, which took place this past weekend in Boston. Joining us for this discussion are Michael Caddell, host of Radio Free Kansas; Tim Hjersted, Co-Founder and Director of Films for Action; and Pam Pohly, editor in chief of the Kansas Free Press.
In our second hour, Riley County Commissioner Karen McCulloh and aTa Bus director Anne Smith join us for a update on the future of public transportation in Manhattan. aTa has received millions in federal grants to begin a regional and fix route transportation system in Manhattan. Smith and McCulloh provide an update, but could the recent Manhattan City Commission election waste this possibility to improve the quality of life in Manhattan? We also find out what is planned for the 2011 Earth Day celebration at K-State from Students for Environmental Action president Zach Pistora.
April 7 - An Interview with Author Pam Schoenewaldt
.
Community Bridge opens this week with an interview featuring author Pamela Schoenewaldt in a discussion of her new novel, When We Were Strangers. The novel tells the story of Irma Vitale, an Italian immigrant who leaves her Abruzzo mountain village to come to America. Schoenewaldt takes up such current issues as immigration reform and women's reproductive rights in this historical novel that readers of Geraldine Brooks, Nancy Turner, Frances de Pontes Peebles, and Debra Dean will most certainly cherish. When We Were Strangers will live in the mind and the heart long after its last page is turned. Visit Schoenewaldt's webpage for more background information about the story.
The MRFF fights unconstitutional religious oppression and tyranny in the U.S. armed forces. Founded by Michael Weinstein, a 1977 Honor Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and legal counsel for the Reagan administration, MRFF directly battles the far-right militant radical evangelical religious fundamentalists who have infiltrated the US military. This battle is detailed in: With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military released by St. Martin's Press in October 2006. The book is an expose on the systemic problem of religious intolerance throughout the United States armed forces.
Rodda is a regular contributor at Talk2Action.org, a blogger on the Huffington Post, and maintains the Liars for Jesus website that provides inquiring minds with news and information on the radical extremists Dominionist Christian activities to pervert our constitutional rights and our US history.
What’s happening to American Democracy? Why are the two political parties only interested in what the wealthy think? Why does the middle class continue to shrink? Why does it seem corporations are above the law? Well the answer lies in the growing reality that our democracy is being replaced by plutocracy. In the March/April edition of Mother Jones, Kevin Drum provides insights that every American should understand in preventing our experiment in democracy from becoming and fascist plutocracy. Joining us to discuss the Drum article as well as his own work on the topic is Andy Kroll, a journalist at Mother Jones. You can find Any's writing at Mother Jones here.
In the second half of our first hour we take up HB 2390 that intends to terminate Kan-ed - the technology backbone that provides Internet services to K-12 education, public hospitals, public libraries, and public institutes of higher education. Joining us to discuss what Kan-ed is and how it benefits Kansans are Carol Barta from the North Central Kansas Libraries System; Jennifer Findley, Senior Director of Education at the Kansas Hospital Association; and Carol Woolbright who is the director Interactive Distance Learning Network at Greenbush Regional Education Service Center in southeastern Kansas.
A new report from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, entitled, "State Mental Health Cuts: A National Crisis," reports that Kansas ranks seventh in the nation when it comes to cutting state funding for mental health programs.
During the second half, we are joined by Rev. Tobais Schlingensiepen, paster of First Congregational Church in Topeka, and Rev. Trudy Cretsinger, former pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Topeka, representing Kansas families served by the Kansas Neurological Institute, another service Sam Brownback has deemed too costly for the state to continued to support. State appropriations for KNI amount to $10 million. KNI serves around 160 Kansans, the majority (83%) are aged between 30 and 59; 88 percent have a profound intellectual disability; 83 percent are unable to speak and the remainder have very limited speech abilities; 68 percent are unable to walk; and, 94 percent have lived at KNI for 10 years or more. But for Sam Brownback these people do not deserve to be care for by the state.
