Category: Podcast Info

Child detainee challenges our kangaroo court; Obama denounces GOP as PBC cheers; Chew reviews Inception. Prof. Lisa Hajjar was at Guantanamo for a recent session of the infamous military commissions for Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was picked up in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15. Prof. Hajjar is a sociologist from UC Santa Barbara and an editor of Middle East Report who details the Khadr case, the flimsy evidence (including torture-induced false confessions) and the remarkable competence displayed by the now-23-year-old as he has fired lawyers, demanded to represent himself, and threatened to boycott the proceedings. The American military lawyers assigned to represent him show remarkable courage in denouncing a rigged system. Prof. Hajjar also comments on the recent Supreme Court denial of an appeal from another Canadian brutalized by the US, Maher Arar. Her detailed article is here, and adds important new details and context to the Arar case. Two other Canadians were also held in Syria, where they were tortured and interrogated at the same time as Arar; one was a friend from Toronto who was the original focus of investigators. While a Canadian commission fully investigated the Arar case and delivered a formal apology and $10.5 million settlement to Arar, the US courts have consistently blocked his access to justice. In the second segment starting at 1:03 you will hear President Obama’s weekly radio/internet address interlaced with PBC’s comments. For the first time, Obama directly criticizes Republicans in the Senate for blocking extension of unemployment benefits and loans for small business. PBC cheers, sort of. And Gary Chew has a review of the new film Inception that you’ve gotta hear, maybe twice. Like the movie, his review is based on dreams, and like its star, Leo DiCaprio, Gary is a writer/actor of considerable talent. The Chew review starts at 1:16:30

BP’s blowout: a view from Florida’s Gulf coast; Karl Rove’s “biggest mistake”; FCC obscenity ban overturned. Author H.P. Albarelli, Jr. joins us from his oil-free beach just west of Tampa Bay on the Gulf coast of Florida. He talks about his recent piece for Truthout.org about the disaster, which leads to broader criticism of Obama’s weak leadership on this crisis, poor appointments, and failure to bounce Bush appointees. Albarelli also talks about an outbreak of dengue fever in Key West, which is one of the locations where the CIA tested dengue as a weapon in the 1950’s; he points out that the symptoms of dengue are very similar to the symptoms of people who are exposed to oil dispersant chemicals like Corexit. His powerful book about US chemical and biological warfare efforts is called A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments. His article on dengue fever will appear soon at Truthout.org PBC comments on Karl Rove’s Wall St. Journal column July 15 entitled “My Biggest Mistake in the White House”. Rove tries to make the case that Bush didn’t lie about WMD in Iraq, with more lies. And your humble host closes with a string of obscenities that have been broadcast on TV, as an appeals court overturned the ban on “fleeting expletives”. Warning: f-bombs in this podcast!

Gitmo, still open; an Israeli whitewash; Obama’s “disgusting” policies. Andy Worthington, British journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files updates us on Guantanamo: 93 % of the prisoners Bush and Cheney called “the worst of the worst” were innocent. 60 of the 181 remaining detainees are innocent Yemenis whose release is blocked by Obama’s moratorium, which is being snubbed by federal judges; 48 others are designated to be held indefinitely without trial, only 35 will face trials, including the KSM posse. Read Andy’s frequent updates on his website, and please support him if you can. PBC offers news and commentary on Israel’s “investigation” of its attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla on May 31, starting at 1 hour 2 minutes into the podcast. In the third segment starting about 1:11 Roger Shuler returns to talk about the Siegelman case, and a recent commentary he wrote about the Obama administration’s policies on whistleblowers and civil liberties, where he quotes Anthony Romero of the ACLU who is “disgusted” with Obama’s policies. Bonus music with meaning from Neil Young and John Fogerty.

Jason Leopold on BP’s pattern of reckless mismanagement; PBC talks back to Tim Geithner. Leopold is a great investigative journalist and deputy managing editor at Truthout. His latest in-depth report on BP’s dangerous practices in Alaska has led to the resignation of BP’s CEO of Alyeska, Kevin Hostler; it has also led corporate media outlets like CNN, AP and the Wall St. Journal to plagiarize Truthout’s exclusive reporting. Hostler is exposed as an intimidating manager who rammed through cost cutting as engineers warned of increased risk. There was a leak from the pipeline this May, and response was slow because Hostler had moved staff away from the pipeline. Leopold’s story is a must-read, and there’s more in the interview. In the second segment, starting about 51:08, your humble host replays an interview with Geithner from the PBS News Hour, and calls “bullshit” on the many evasions and spins served up in response to critical questions about the prospects for recovery for working Americans. Geithner dances around the most serious issues with PR talking points; cheerleading for Wall St., he ignores the reality that manufacturing jobs will not be returning and many more people will lose their homes.

Gov. Don Siegelman on Supreme Court ruling; David Swanson on sneaky House vote for war funding. Gov. Siegelman may benefit from the recent Supreme Court ruling for ex-Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, which invalidated the “honest services” statute. The Court has since returned the Siegelman-Scrushy convictions to the 11th Circuit for review. Siegelman tells how Karl Rove and friends framed him, how Elena Kagan backs prosecutors over the wrongfully convicted, and his prospects for justice in the next legal rounds. Swanson, author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union is a tireless progressive activist and the cofounder of After Downing Street Coalition. He deconstructs the bizarre tactics used by House leaders to fund the escalation in Afghanistan without leaving fingerprints. Read his excellent article about it here. We run down the list of members who voted against the tactics and the bill for the right reasons–and can only identify 8. While many Dems spoke out against the war and escalation, only those 8 had the courage to actually vote against it–a new low. We describe the strange politics of this moment–Republicans, who all support the war, voted against the funding, while most anti-war Dems voted for it. And now, Obama threatens a veto over the part of the bill intended to stop teacher layoffs.

Stem Cell Clinical Trials; Commentary on Kagan Confirmation; movie review: Mother and Child. Dr. Eva Feldman of the University of Michigan has exciting news on clinical trials of stem cells on ALS (Lou Gherig’s disease) patients. States like California and Michigan bypassed Bush-era restrictions on stem cell research, and we are seeing real promise for halting deterioration in ALS patients. Dr. Feldman is quite impressive, and explains the science and procedures simply and vividly. Please share this interview with families struggling with ALS and other diseases like Parkinson’s and diabetes. Prof. Marjorie Cohn offers smart comments from a progressive perspective on Elena Kagen and the “vapid” process (Kagan’s words) of Supreme Court confirmation. Most troubling to Prof. Cohn is almost-Justice Kagan’s brief to deny habeas corpus rights to prisoners at Bagram in Afghanistan, even those not picked up in Afghanistan. And Gary Chew has a summer movie review of Mother and Child and a song from the movie, Little One by Lucy Schwartz. For easy access, the Kagan segment starts at 31:00 and the Chew-review is at 56:00.

Child sex slavery and pandering. Two well-informed writers talk about a sordid, difficult subject. Nick Bryant has just published The Franklin Scandal, which details a child pandering network run by an influential Republican from Omaha, Lawrence King. King fleeced a credit union of about $40 million, and used his political influence to get the FBI and other law enforcement and judicial agencies to coverup his child sex pandering network, which included the abuse of some residents of Boys Town and the outrageous conviction of one of the female victims on perjury charges. More info at the book’s website. Charles A. Bonner is a human rights attorney from the Bay Area, who represented a young girl who was kidnapped and held in a dungeon by a serial rapist; he has published a fiction book based on those real events in Syracuse, NY called The Bracelet. The book also details international sex slavery rings that exploit impoverished young women from third world countries. Bonner offers free legal consultation to victims, you can contact him at .

McGovern and Solomon on Afghanistan. 27-year CIA analyst Ray McGovern and author/activist Norman Solomon comment on Obama’s firing of Gen. McChrystal and failure to change our failed policies in Afghanistan. We talk about the impact of the Rolling Stone article, the media storm that praises the appointment of Gen. Petraeus without serious questions over the counterinsurgency strategies that Obama embraced last year. McGovern suggests that McChrystal, who knows how bad things are in Afghanistan, may have brought on his own dismissal. We comment on contrasting statements from Pentagon chief Gates and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, reports that Pakistan is cutting deals with Afghan President Karzai that go around the US, and the upcoming battle over supplemental appropriations to pay for the military occupation of Afghanistan. Read McGovern’s commentaries here, and Solomon’s here.

Write That Book Already! Authors Sam Barry and Kathi Kamen Goldmark’s new book is an entertaining and informative self-help book for writers; both have worked in publishing and have been published, and their insight and “tough love” are quite valuable. PBC invited his friend and colleague Rona Renner, host of the Childhood Matters radio show to join us for a friendly “intervention”. Rona has been thinking about writing a book, and we use her as our author-wanna-be–providing real world examples of the challenges of writing a book and getting it published. We talk about the practical side of writing, getting support, finding an agent, asking for an advance–all the key questions you’ll face if you want to write a book. Sam and Kathi also write the “Author Enablers” column. So go write a book, and send a copy to PBC!

Obama & progressives; S.C. Senate challenge ends; Crazy Arizona. In this 98-minute package of news & views, we start with Ari Melber of The Nation and Politico on ObamaCo’s support for conservative “Democrats” like Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and open contempt for labor and progressives who opposed her. Melber says the only lefty group getting any traction with the administration is the ACLU, because they are willing to sue over important issues. Brad Friedman of Bradblog reports on the South Carolina Democrats’ rejection of the election challenge by Vic Rawl of the miraculous “election” of phantom candidate Alvin Greene; he expands his previous report that Canada’s Dominion Voting now owns Diebold/Premier and Sequoia, but not Sequoia’s intellectual property, giving Dominion 55% of the US voting machine market; and Brad explains that Karl Rove is now following him on Twitter. Ken Silverstein is the Washington editor of Harpers; he talks about his story on Arizona’s legislature in the July issue, which he describes as “composed almost entirely of dimwits, racists and cranks.” PBC makes numerous comparisons to California’s problems–the state is crashing and the candidates are talking about immigration, a federal issue. Friedman starts at 29:30 and Silverstein starts at 1:11:30