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.
Christopher E. Renner
Showing posts with label veteran affairs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label veteran affairs. Show all posts
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.
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.
Mark Hertsgaard writes for The Nation: "From the standpoint of human survival, it makes no sense: our media and political systems are losing focus on climate change long before the problem is solved—indeed, while it manifestly continues to get worse. You can help change that on October 10. That's the date of a Global Work Party intended to celebrate climate solutions and press governments for change. Some 4,483 actions (and counting) are planned in 174 countries, says Jamie Henn of 350.org, one of the groups coordinating the event. "To build a grassroots movement that can challenge Big Oil and deliver real climate action, we need to root that movement in community solutions to the climate crisis," says Henn. 'By making climate solutions real and visible, we can build broader support for the type of transformation we need.'" Photo: 350.org
David Rosnick reports for The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "The economy lost 95,000 jobs in September - 77,000 of which were temporary Census positions - while the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent. Including downward revisions in payroll employment for July and August, there are 110,000 fewer jobs than reported one month ago. Though the overall rate of unemployment did not change in September, different populations were not similarly affected by employment changes." Photo: Philo Nordlund / Flickr
DOJ's Troubled Case Against Uthman
Dafna Linzer reports for ProPublica: "A security mishap in court filings earlier this year led to the accidental release of the government's case against Uthman, one of the 48 men the Obama administration plans to keep imprisoned.... Until now, it has not been possible to assess the strength of the government's case against the detainees because the identity of the witnesses and other evidence has been redacted. But this examination, based on reviews of previous judicial opinions and court filings, as well as interviews with senior government officials, former military prosecutors, intelligence officials and other key players makes clear for the first time the extent of the weaknesses in the evidence."
Judge to US: Yes, Really, Torture is Illegal
Karen Greenberg reports for Mother Jones: "Finally, it seemed, the moment had arrived. The jury pool had been whittled down to 65, the final voir dire was set to begin, and lawyers on both sides were ready with their opening statements. Anticipation was high, and so, clearly, was nervousness. For the first time in more than a year of pretrial hearings, security held the press and observers on the ground floor of the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan. Anyone who took the elevator to the 26th floor without clearance from the US Marshalls was turned away."
Broken Promises: Thousands of Veterans Denied Crucial Care
Mike Ludwig reports for Truthout: "The Army tacked a five-month extension on Sgt. Ryan Christian Major's term of military service in 2006, and that November, just five days after his original discharge date, Ryan was critically injured when an underground bomb exploded during a foot patrol in Ramadi, Iraq.... For many Americans, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is startling: more than $1 trillion has been spent on the conflicts. At least 5,670 service members have been killed, and 91,384 have been wounded in conflict or evacuated from the war zone for treatment of wounds or illnesses. But for soldiers like Ryan and their families, the true costs of war cannot be summed up with numbers printed on a page. They have paid a price higher than most Americans can imagine, and now veterans' advocates say Congress and the government is in no way prepared to compensate them for their effort and sacrifice."
Jim Naureckas writes for Extra!: "Way back in 1983, corporate media helped sell the dubious notion that Social Security needed saving by a blue-ribbon commission (Extra!, 1–2/88). The panel—headed by future Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan—raised payroll taxes and the retirement age for the ostensible purpose of accumulating a large surplus to help finance the retirement of the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964. That this surplus, loaned to the general federal budget in exchange for Treasury bonds, would also help to finance the Reagan-era tax cuts for affluent taxpayers was treated as a complete coincidence."
Seth Freed Wessler reports for ColorLines: "When President Obama entered the White House, he promised to push a 'comprehensive immigration reform' bill in his first year. Doing so, he apparently calculated, would require a compromise. To garner bi-partisan support for opening new paths to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the US, the president, congressional Democrats and key Beltway advocates came together around a troubling political strategy: They would endorse a hawkish buildup of deportation and border security in hopes of creating space for broader reforms.... Almost two years into the Obama presidency, however, no bi-partisan support for a broader bill has emerged from this hawkishness - in fact, the few Republicans who once backed immigration reform have fled. Worse, the Democrats' would-be political trading game conceals a larger, more troubling fact: Even if the strategy eventually works, the 'comprehensive' schema Obama supports will undermine itself with its massive and indiscriminate deportation dragnet." Photo: Erin Hollaway
Lou Dobbs, American Hypocrite
Isabel Macdonald reports for The Nation: "In Lou Dobbs's heyday at CNN, when he commanded more than 800,000 viewers and a reported $6 million a year for "his fearless reporting and commentary," in the words of former CNN president Jonathan Klein, the host became notorious for his angry rants against "illegal aliens." But Dobbs reserved a special venom for the employers who hire them, railing against "the employer who is so shamelessly exploiting the illegal alien and so shamelessly flouting US law" and even proposing, on one April 2006 show, that "illegal employers who hire illegal aliens" should face felony charges."
Sunday, September 23 - Bob McChesney interviews Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on WILL AM580. Bernie Sanders was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006 after serving 16 years in the House of Representatives. He is the longest serving independent member of Congress in American history. Listen to McChesney and Senator Sanders talk about the American political climate and call to comment. Download MP3 file.
The Chamber's Foreign Influence
Faiz Shakir, Benjamin Armbruster, George Zornick, Zaid Jilani, Alex Seitz-Wald, and Tanya Somanader write the Progress Report for Think Progress: "Following the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in January, the right-wing U.S. Chamber of Commerce has taken record-breaking steps to influence the 2010 midterm elections. Pledging to spend an unprecedented $75 million this year, the Chamber is in the midst of launching one of the largest partisan attack campaigns to defeat Democrats, including candidates like Jack Conway (KY), Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA), Jerry Brown (CA), Rep. Joe Sestak (PA) and Rep. Tom Perriello (VA). Having aired more than 8,000 campaign ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone and having spent 85 percent of its current expenditure on Republicans, the Chamber's spending has "dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending." It is well-established that the Chamber has used dues from corporations like health insurance giant Aetna to try to defeat health care reform, received contributions from bailed-out banks to lobby against Wall Street reform, and solicited funds from Fox News' parent company News Corporation for its election season attack campaign. But a new ThinkProgress investigation reveals that the Chamber is leveraging foreign companies to help fund its activities. Foreign corporations that join the Chamber pay dues that go into the Chamber's general account, which the Chamber then employs to fund its attack campaign. The Chamber "firmly denies the charge, saying its internal accounting rules prevent any foreign money from being used for political purposes." But, as a New York Times editorial notes today, foreign money is fungible, so "it is impossible for an outsider to know whether the group is following its rules." "We want to know what the system is. Basically, they claim they have a system, it's not enough to simply trust them, we need to verify," said ThinkProgress' Editor-in-Chief Faiz Shakir on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews yesterday. While Congressional members and watchdog groups are calling for further investigation into the charges, such campaign actions fall into "something of a regulatory netherworld" leading campaign finance watchdogs, lawyers, and current and former federal officials to believe regulatory agencies like the IRS or the FEC will not examine them closely. Thus, with the Citizens United ruling and the Chamber's abuse of its 501(c)(6) standing, the Chamber is set to use 'unlimited money from donors who have no fear of disclosure.'"
Recommended Audio: Rachel Maddow - Campaign Finance Reform We Can Agree on
Rachel Maddow addresses the concern about The Chamber of Commerce's donations to Republican candidates and the potential for foreign influence in American elections.
Adam Serwer writes for The Americna Prospect: "Liberals and conservatives love to accuse each other of shredding the Constitution while the other is in power. "The Pledge to America," the GOP's much maligned attempt at a governing agenda, begins by decrying "an unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary." What's interesting about this round of accusations from the right is that they ignore the very real abuses of power the Obama administration has carried over from the Bush administration in favor of mindless attacks on the administration's efforts to expand -- or even just maintain -- the welfare state." Photo: Flickr/fibonacciblue
GoolsbeeGate: The GOP's Latest Obama "Scandal"
David Corn writes for Mother Jones: "If the Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives in the coming congressional elections, Americans can expect to see subpoenas flying like pigeons around Washington next year. Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican likely to take over the House oversight committee, has pledged that if the GOPers win the House, he will double the size of his staff in order to mount multiple investigations of the Obama White House. But will these be real probes or trumped-up witch hunts? A taste of what's to come can be found in the Republicans' current effort to whip up an Obama scandal: GoolsbeeGate."
Howard Dean helped the Democrats take control of the House in 2006, and his 50 state strategy laid the groundwork for Obama's exhaustive grassroots campaign. So why is he out of the picture in Washington these days? Ari Berman talks with the hosts of Morning Joe about his new book, Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics, why the right manages to harness their movements better than the left and what it will take to revitalize the Democratic Party.
5 GOP Candidates Who Want to Force Rape Victims to Bear Their Attacker's Child
Tana Ganeva reports for AlterNet: "The GOP has always pandered to the right-wing base by promising to strip women of the right to control their own bodies. In the interest of not alienating sane people though, many Republican lawmakers make an exception in cases of incest and rape, and when a mother's life is in danger. But a group of ultra-conservative Republican Senate candidates -- recently propelled to victory in the primaries by Tea Party groups who claim to oppose government intrusion into people's lives -- want the government to force women to carry fetuses to term, even in cases of incest or rape. Rachel Maddow, in her show on Wednesday night, called this group the 'Bear Your Rapist's Baby Caucus.' According to Raw Story, at least 78 GOP candidates for the House would qualify for this extreme voting bloc.
David Norlin writes for the Kansas Free Press: ""Boon!" was the headline for Tim Unruh's Salina Journal piece Sunday, Sept. 26. It laid out how Clay Center (and Herington, Junction City, Abilene, and many others) are laying out the welcome mat for TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. Count the benefits: Bud's Tire service sales tripling, with guaranteed overstock buyout/bailout; referrals for boat sales, doctors, and dentists; full restaurants; swelling campground rentals; pipeline spouses as public service volunteers; pump station/power generation cash cutting Clay Center's electric rates "up to" twenty percent; six million dollars for a 14.5-mile transmission line; and most heart-warmingly, 1,000 charity bucks from TransCanada and 500 from the pipeline company for Clay Center's Orchestra, which just lost funding from the Kansas Arts Commission. "
Tribal Councils in US and Canada Uniting Against Oil Sands Pipeline
Elizabeth McGowan reports for SolveClimate: "Indigenous communities in Canada and the United States are singing the same tune in opposition to TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. Last week, representatives from Canada's First Nations traveled to Washington, D.C., to explain how mining of tar sands for heavy crude oil is causing severe health problems and environmental upheaval across their communities. They've also joined forces with Native American groups in the U.S., calling on tribal councils along the Keystone XL's route to come out against the proposed pipeline."
Follow Wyoming on Fracking Regs
David Sirota writes for Truthdig.com: "Frank Sinatra once said that if he could make it in New York, he could make it anywhere. Thanks to new drilling rules, environmentalists can now say the same about Wyoming. To review: Wyoming is as politically red and pro-fossil-fuel a place as exists in America. Nicknamed the “Cowboy State” for its hostility to authority, the square swath of rangeland most recently made headlines when its tax department temporarily suspended levies at gun shows for fear of inciting an armed insurrection. The derrick-scarred home of oilman Dick Cheney, the state emits more carbon emissions per capita than any other, and is as close as our country gets to an industry-owned energy colony. So, to put it mildly, Wyoming is not known for its activist government or its embrace of green policies."
Richard Kim comments for The Nation: "When I read that 18-year-old Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi had committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after two other students posted a video of him having sex with another man online, my heart dropped. Tyler grew up in New Jersey and played the violin, and I did too. I don't know what life was like for Tyler before he chose to end it, but my early high school years were spent improvising survival strategies. I mentally plotted the corridors where the jocks hung out and avoided them. I desperately tried to never go to the bathroom during the school day. I was Asian and gay, stood 5'2", weighed 95 pounds and when I got excited about something—which was often—my voice cracked into a register normally only heard among Hannah Montana fans. If it weren't for the fact that I ran really fast and talked even faster and enjoyed the protection of a few popular kids and a couple of kind-hearted teachers—well, it's not hard to imagine a similar fate."
How the Phone Companies Are Screwing America: The $320 Billion Broadband Rip-Off
David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick report for AlterNet: "Since 1991, the telecom companies have pocketed an estimated $320 billion --- that's about $3,000 per household. This is a conservative estimate of the wide-scale plunder that includes monies garnered from hidden rate hikes, depreciation allowances, write-offs and other schemes. Ironically, in 2009, the FCC's National Broadband plan claimed it will cost about $350 billion to fully upgrade America's infrastructure. The principal consequence of the great broadband con is not only that Americans are stuck with an inferior and overpriced communications system, but the nation's global economic competitiveness has been undermined."
Randall Amster J.D. Ph.D., comments for Truthout: "In just a few short years, it has become increasingly apparent that humankind is fast approaching a technological tipping point. Particularly in the West - the First World, the Developed Nations, or whatever self-consciously superlative designation you prefer - a thoroughgoing dependence on 'high technology' for life-sustaining essentials is evident in all spheres of modern society. The hardware of our lives, from food and energy to transportation and shelter, is entirely bound up with the workings of a highly mechanized and digitized global economy. And no less so, the software of our existence - communications, community, entertainment, education, media, politics, and the like - is equally entwined within that same technocratic system." Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Joseph Hatfield, 96dpi
Do ISPs Pay Minorities to Oppose Net Neutrality?
Gred Sandoval report for CNET: "The Los Angeles Times has raised questions about the financial relationship between some large telecommunications companies and influential minority groups. According to the report, AT&T, Comcast and Verizon Communications have poured big money into the coffers of such groups as the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Urban League, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People."
Group: Merger Should Include Public Affairs Programming Support
Juliana Gruenwald writes for the National Journal: "A union representing online, film and television writers Wednesday called on federal regulators if they approve the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC Universal to require the combine company to donate at least $10 million a year for a decade to support public affairs programming on television and online. In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Writers Guild of America East said it hopes the commission and the Justice Department will block the proposed merger. But if regulators approve the deal, the combined company should "contribute significant resources to the production of truly independent content," the guild said.
Jim Naureckas and Alyssa Figueroa write for Extra!: "Lawmakers talking about U.S. policy issues are the bread and butter of the Sunday morning news shows—NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday. An Extra! study of the lawmakers who appear on these shows finds they have voting records that tilt to the right. Extra! studied the guests on these four programs from January 25, 2009—the first show after Obama’s inauguration—until April 25, 2010, more than a year into his administration. Guests who were current members of the Senate or House of Representatives, or former members since 2001, were tallied by voting record (in the 111th Congress or, for former lawmakers, the most recent available) according to the VoteView system."
Ten Ways Your Mobile Phone Company Tried to Screw You in 2010
Josh Levy writes for the Huffington Post: "According to the Chinese calendar, it's the year of the Golden Tiger. But for mobile users in the US, 2010 is the Year Wireless Carriers Tried to Screw You. Don't think the phone companies' actions warrant their own year? Check out how they've systematically conned consumers using hidden fees, self-imposed hardware limitations, restricted speech, and the mangling of perfectly good software."
AT and T: No One Can Stop Our "Paid Prioritization"
Nate Anderson reports for Ars Technia: The "paid prioritization" train is leaving the station, and not even the FCC's drive to "reclassify" Internet services as limited common carriers can derail it. Net neutrality advocates, incensed when AT&T's predecessor first suggested the need to charge some Internet companies for "using his pipes free," won't be pleased to hear that AT&T won't let such deals be halted by the FCC. Even if Chairman Genachowski succeeds in bringing ISPs under "Title II"—a prospect that looks increasingly unlikely—AT&T says it will have no effect on its ability to charges companies more for priority Internet access."
On June 16th, a joint panel of U.S. and Vietnamese policymakers, citizens and scientists released an action plan, urging the U.S. government and other donors to provide an estimated $30 million annually over 10 years to clean up sites still contaminated by dioxin, a toxic chemical used in the defoliant. However, the Agent Orange legacy is still affecting the American GIs who served in Vietnam, their children and grandchildren as well as the people of the former South Vietnam. Susan Schnall, a former Navy nurse and officer and Board member of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign joins us to discuss the on-going disaster of Agent Orange.
Lewis Beale writes for Miller-McCune: "April 22 marks the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day, and with it, the symbolic beginning of the environmental movement. The event was the culmination of a number of trends that began in the 1950's when scientists began to note how industrialization was impacting on the Earth's ecosystem. Then, in 1962, Rachel Carson's groundbreaking book 'Silent Spring,' which documented the effects of pesticides on the environment, caused an international sensation and led eventually to the banning of the pesticide DDT in the United States."
Maria Gabriela Egas reports for Council on Hemispheric Affairs: "In what could be seen as an effort to respond to the March 11, 2009, edition of the US Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights, Ecuador has promised to publish its own human rights counter-report. This initiative is meant to assess Washington's own respect for human rights from an outside perspective and is meant to be a necessary response to the State Department's often imprudent document. Also, the very next day, March 12, China published 'Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009.'"
American Kleptocracy: How Fears of Socialism and Fascism Hide Naked Theft
William J. Astore writes for TomDispatch.com: "Kleptocracy - now, there's a word I was taught to associate with corrupt and exploitative governments that steal ruthlessly and relentlessly from the people. It's a word, in fact, that's usually applied to flawed or failed governments in Africa, Latin America or the nether regions of Asia."
Matt Taibbi writes for The Guardian UK: "So Goldman Sachs, the world's greatest and smuggest investment bank, has been sued for fraud by the American Securities and Exchange Commission. Legally, the case hangs on a technicality. Morally, however, the Goldman Sachs case may turn into a final referendum on the greed-is-good ethos that conquered America sometime in the 80s – and in the years since has aped other horrifying American trends such as boybands and reality shows in spreading across the western world like a venereal disease." Photo Credit: David Paul Ohmer
Goldman Sachs: What Hath Fraud Wrought?
Michael Winship comments for Truthout: "Goldman Sachs is the Blackwater of finance, the latest in a long line of companies you love to hate, like AIG and the Dallas Cowboys. Hit 'refresh' on any financial news Web site and you're likely to get yet another revelation of [Goldman Sachs'] colossal and impressively varied shenanigans."
Moyers and economists James Kwak and Simon Johnson wonder whether the financial powers are more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever.
The White House and Democrats in Congress have begun pushing in earnest for a package of financial reforms. But will it be enough to stop Wall Street from causing another meltdown?
To find out what real financial reform needs to look like, Bill Moyers turns to Simon Johnson and James Kwak, the co-authors of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.
Bob Naiman comments for Truthout: "Sometime between now and Memorial Day, the House is expected to consider $33 billion more for war in Afghanistan. This 'war supplemental' is largely intended to plug the hole in Afghanistan war spending for the current fiscal year caused by the ongoing addition of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, whose purpose is largely to conduct a military offensive in Kandahar that 94 percent of the people there say they don't want, preferring peace negotiations with the Taliban instead." (Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The U.S. Army, Thomas Hawk, lepiaf.geo)
Feeling Warehoused in Army Trauma Care Units
James Dao and Dan Frosch report for the New York Times: "A year ago, Specialist Michael Crawford wanted nothing more than to get into Fort Carson’s Warrior Transition Battalion, a special unit created to provide closely managed care for soldiers with physical wounds and severe psychological trauma. A strapping Army sniper who once brimmed with confidence, he had returned emotionally broken from Iraq, where he suffered two concussions from roadside bombs and watched several platoon mates burn to death. The transition unit at Fort Carson, outside Colorado Springs, seemed the surest way to keep suicidal thoughts at bay, his mother thought."
Michael Collins writes for The Daily Censored: "Stock deals are rigged for insiders. Big money runs Congress. And we’ve gone to war based on a series of calculated lies. Are you willing to accept the fact that our elections are subject to the same type of corruption? If you are, then Proving Election Fraud by Richard Charnin pulls back the curtain and exposes the pattern of election fraud over the past four decades. It’s not a mystery when your look at the numbers and check them against multiple public sources. The information is all there – if the experts care to look."
What Would Jesus Insure?
Lindsay Beyerstein reports for The Media Consortium: "Christian groups are trying to create a run around health care reform by setting up alternative, unregulated religious health care bill collectives - and movement conservatives are cheering them on. Religious right-watcher Sarah Posner reports on so-called Christian health care-sharing ministries in the American Prospect."
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, Andrea Nill, and Alex Seitz-Wald report in The Progress Report for Think Progress: "Arizona has often been referred to as "ground zero" of the nation's immigration fight. It's the state where a nine-year-old girl and her father were shot and killed by anti-immigrant Minuteman vigilantes this past summer. It's the place where the brutal murder of a prominent rancher led politicians to blur the line between dangerous drug cartel operatives and undocumented workers. It's also home to "Hispanic-hunting" Sheriff Joe Arpaio. On Monday, the Arizona state legislature made headlines when it approved a bill entitled the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act," legislation that will likely end up establishing the harshest set of state immigration laws in the country. Gov. Jan Brewer's (R-AZ) phone has been ringing off the hook with residents encouraging her to either sign or veto it. Given the fact that Brewer is up for re-election this fall, and with polling data suggesting that 70 percent of Arizona voters support the stringent measure, it seems likely that the bill will soon become law -- but not without a fight." Photo: Minnesota Public Radio.
Civil Rights Advocates Vow To Challenge Arizona Immigration Law
Jonathan Cooper reports for the Huffington Post: "Arodi Berrelleza isn't one of the targets of Arizona's new anti-illegal immigration law – he's a U.S. citizen. But the 18-year-old high school student from Phoenix said he's afraid he'll be arrested anyway if police see him driving around with friends and relatives, some of them illegal immigrants."
Former Bush Appointee to Plead Guilty to Contempt of Congress
Jason Leopold reports for Truthout: "A former Bush administration official who headed an obscure office within the White House that protects whistleblowers and enforces anti-discrimination laws was charged Thursday with criminal contempt of Congress."
Confessions of a Former Oil Industry Consultant
Christine Shearer, Truthout: "Jeremy Leggett has undergone quite a few large career changes, from oil industry consultant to Greenpeace scientist to solar power entrepreneur. A geologist by training, he worked with the oil industry until his studies brought him face-to-face with the growing evidence of climate change. In an industry refusing to change, Leggett went to work for Greenpeace and was part of the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) talks up to the non-binding, international climate change treaty, the Kyoto Protocol."
Rebecca Solnit writes for TomDispatch.com: "These days, I see how optimistic and positive disaster and apocalypse movies were. Remember how, when those giant asteroids or alien space ships headed directly for Earth, everyone rallied and acted as one while our leaders led? We're in a movie like that now, except that there's not a lot of rallying or much leading above the grassroots level."
Independent Review of IPCC and Its Global warming Reports: An Answer to Critics
Peter N. Spotts reports for the Christian Science Monitor: "The political fight over the science of global warming took another turn when the United Nations announced Wednesday that it was initiating an investigation into the practices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
Last Chance for Climate Change Legislation?
Brad Knickerbocker reports for the Christian Science Monitor: "Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Saturday he would have to pull out of the bipartisan climate change effort because of concerns Democrats would push forward with a debate on immigration reform, rather than the climate change bill, in the Senate."
Obama Says Supreme Court Nominee Must Support Women's Rights
National Partnership for Women and Families reports: "President Obama on Wednesday said it is 'very important' that his Supreme Court nominee interprets the Constitution as protecting individual rights, including women's rights, the Washington Post reports. When asked whether he would consider nominating someone who opposes abortion rights, Obama said, 'I am somebody who believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction' (Kornblut/Barnes, Washington Post, 4/22).
Melinda Beck reports for The Wall Street Journal: "Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the birth-control pill in the U.S. The dawn of dependable contraception not only ended the post-war baby boom, it also ignited the sexual revolution and helped millions of women to enter the work force. Nowadays, women can choose from a bevy of birth-control options, including pills, patches and rings that allow them to have as few periods as they like, even none. Implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs) can prevent pregnancy for years at a time and eliminate the need to refill and remember. Morning-after pills that can decrease the risk from unprotected sex are available without a prescription even to teenagers. Women who want to end their fertility permanently can do so in a doctor's office without undergoing surgery. Abstinence is still taught in many schools and homes as being 100% effective if followed diligently." Photo: American Experience on PBS.
Gibbs: DADT on Hold Until 2011?
The Editors at the Advocate write: "President Barack Obama is allowing the Department of Defense to run the course of its investigation as to how to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday. The DOD's study is due December 1, suggesting legislative action will likely be ruled out until after the new year."
FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps is passionate about the role of media in the United States. That's why two recent court rulings are troubling him. One rolled back restrictions on cross-media ownership (owning a broadcast entity and a newspaper in the same market). The other, in a big victory for telecomm companies, basically states that the FCC has little authority under current law over Internet service providers. Find out more about these and other media issues below.
Journalism's Tea Party Express
Howard Kurtz writes for the Washington Post: "Are the media serving you too much tea? Are journalists so revved up on caffeine that they're breathlessly hyping the importance of a group that has little clout? Is this how bored reporters fill the lull before the midterms heat up? There's some truth in these observations -- on what topic doesn't the media go overboard? -- but the larger premise is wrong."
Kurt Opsahl comments for the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Once upon a time, Facebook could be used simply to share your interests and information with a select small community of your own choosing. As Facebook's privacy policy once promised, 'No personal information that you submit to Facebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.'" Image: University of Calgary Wiki.
Net Neutrality: Regulators Are supposed to Stop Harmful Business Models
Jason Rosenbaum writes for FireDogLake: "A half-dozen clowns – John W. Mayo and Marius Schwartz of Georgetown, Bruce Owen at Stanford, Robert Shapiro at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, Lawrence J. White at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and Glenn Woroch University of California, Berkeley – recently took the the New York Times op-ed pages to argue against what they call possible 'extreme regulations' by the FCC and the rest of us would call enforcing net neutrality."
Action Alert:Cast Your Vote for Comcast as the Worst Company in America
Megan Tady writes for Stop Big Media:
Want to put Comcast in its place? Channel that anger you feel every month when you pay your cable bill? Now you can.
Each year, Consumerist.com runs a competition to determine the “Worst Company in America.” Not surprisingly, Comcast made it to the final round, defeating Cash4Gold in the semi-finals.
We think Comcast deserves the title of “Worst Company,” don’t you? If so, head on over to the Consumerist and cast your vote. The voting starts today and runs through the weekend. The winner will be announced Monday.
Comcast has a long history of terrible service, price-gouging its customers, cheating its competitors, and secretly interfering with users’ Internet traffic. Now it wants to take over NBC Universal — one of the nation’s largest TV and movie studios — a move that would give it control over even more of what we see and how we see it, on TV and online.
This is a great opportunity to send a message to Comcast that we’re overwhelmingly disgusted by its behavior. Comcast has come close to “winning” in past years, so let’s make sure it’s voted the worst in 2010.
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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
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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.
since 1 January 2009
