Category: PBC

Coleen Rowley, courageous whistleblower, still. Rowley is the 24-year FBI agent who exposed the Bureau’s failures prior to 9/11 in the investigation of “20th hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui, and joins Sibel Edmonds and PBC for the next installment of the Boiling Frogs series. Rowley remains outspoken on Bush-era interrogations and torture, accountability for torture and other offenses, new legislation to protect whistleblowers, especially national security workers, our irrational security at airports, and the rise of the security-surveillance complex since 9/11.

Voices for justice for the Palestinians. Part 1 of a 2 part series of interviews from activists who participated in the Sabeel Conference held March 5 and 6 in Marin County, California. Sabeel means “The Way” in Arabic, and this conference brought a range of participants from around the world. PBC opens the program with an update on concessions from Palestinian leaders, agreeing to hold indirect talks with Israel; just 24 hours later, VP Joe Biden arrived in Israel to a defiant announcement: Israel says it will build 1600 more housing units in E. Jerusalem, ignoring demands from the Obama administration to stop the illegal construction. This podcast features:
–Prof. Hisham Ahmed of St. Mary’s College, who was born in a refugee camp and became a Fulbright scholar;
–Rev. Don Wagner of North Park U in Chicago, an expert on Christian Zionists;
–Sama Adnan, founder of NewPolicy.org, which has started a political action committee to support Congress members who have a balanced position on Israel-Palestine issues;
–Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel;
–Anna Baltzer, an American Jew and articulate advocate for the rights of the Palestinians.
Part 2 will be released in the next day or two.

Dr. Justin Frank puts Obama on the couch; Dr. Bill Perry on nuclear disarmament; Gary Chew on the Oscars. Dr. Frank wrote Bush On The Couch a few years ago, and is in the process of writing Obama On The Couch. He offers some interesting thoughts about Obama’s excessive need for bipartisan approval, how intentional his manipulation of voters was during the campaign, and the contradictions of his decision making regarding escalation in Afghanistan. Dr. Bill Perry was Defense Secretary from 1994-98, and PBC talked with him at an event in San Francisco hosted by the Ploughshares Fund where they previewed a new documentary about the “tipping point” in nuclear disarmament. Perry, along with Reagan’s Secretary of State George Schultz, former Sen. Sam Nunn and Nixon Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (!) are working together on disarmament efforts. Gary Chew, who is not a doctor, joins me to talk about this year’s Oscar nominees.

Coleen Rowley, 24-yr-FBI agent, on recent terror plots and the 9/11 Commission. This is another edition of the Boiling Frogs interview series, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds. Rowley shares with us her views on the latest spectacle surrounding the Christmas Day foiled terrorist attempt, and how it reflects on policies that were implemented after 9/11. She provides us with insight into the pretend investigations carried out by the 9/11 Commission, and how they conducted many of their interviews of FBI witnesses and experts inside the FBI HQ and offices. Ms. Rowley talks about the absence of real investigations and accountability in almost any government related wrongdoing, our shameful treatment of inmates at Guantanamo, the alarming desensitization of our people bolstered by the culprit mainstream media, and much more. Rowley, an FBI special agent for almost 24 years, was legal counsel to the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis from 1990 to 2003. She came to national attention in June 2002, when she testified before Congress about serious lapses before 9/11 that helped account for the failure to prevent the attacks. She now writes and speaks on ethical decision-making and on balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigation.

Alabama sleaze, hardball in hydroponics. Alabama blogger Roger Shuler returns with a report from the Deep South. He comments on Sen. Shelby’s abusive hold on Obama appointments and Sen. Session’s homophobic opposition to lifting Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. While Shelby has blocked appointments, Obama has left partisan Republicans in critical US Attorney jobs, including Leura Canary in Alabama. One of her deputies, who coached the key witness in the Siegelman case, is on his way to Gitmo as a defense attorney in kangaroo court er, military commissions for some prisoners. Shuler also updates the Siegelman appeals and reports that debt collectors played a key role in Sen. Brown’s recent Massachusetts election. Big Mike Straumietis, CEO of Advanced Nutrients, charges that hydroponic equipment producers are colluding against him and threatening retailers because he openly supports medical marijuana cultivation. His new magazine is Rosebud.

Jason Leopold on whitewash for Bybee/Yoo; Brad Friedman on O’Keefe/Breitbart scam to tamper with Sen. Landrieu’s phones. Leopold is deputy managing editor at Truthout and has closely followed of the torture memos written by John Yoo and approved by Jay Bybee. The Obama Justice Dept. has watered down the findings of the Bush-era investigation that concluded that Yoo and Bybee had “violated professional standards” and referred them to Bar associations for possible discipline; the new report, according to Newsweek, says they merely “showed poor judgment”. We refer to the cases of homicide that Scott Horton reports in our podcast 91 and suggest the Obama Justice Dept. is obstructing justice. Friedman, whose Bradblog is celebrating its 6th anniversary, has done an excellent job unraveling the tactics of O’Keefe–first in the ACORN hatchet job, and now with his Jan 25 arrest for trying to tamper with phones at Sen. Landrieu’s office in New Orleans. You won’t get this kind of context and detail from corporate media outlets.

David Swanson on the imperial presidency, Kate Hanni on flyers’ rights. Swanson is the tireless activist whose resume includes ACORN, Kucinich for President 2004, Democrats.com, AfterDowningStreet.org, impeachpac.org andthe lates, defundwar.org His new book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union details the expansion of executive power advance by Bush and maintained by Obama, and singles out Congress for failing to assert its oversight, war powers, and budget responsibilities. Swanson is brilliant at seeing the big picture while engaging in specific battles. Kate Hanni reports a key victory for the traveling public: you cannot be imprisoned on a plane on the tarmac for over 3 hours. Continue reading Info on Podcast #85

Mark Klein on Obama’s continuation of Bush’s massive domestic wiretapping operations. Klein is the heroic phone technician who exposed the secret room in San Francisco where the NSA diverts all phone calls and emails in clear violation of the 4th Amendment. This is another installment in the Boiling Frogs series, co-hosted by Sibel Edmonds. Klein talks about how he learned of the eavesdropping and its huge scope, how the media and Senators took his confidential information to the government, and how the Obama administration continues the interceptions and obstruction of justice. Please share this with as many people as you can, and visit Sibel’s new website, www.boilingfrogspost.com Klein’s book, Wiring Up The Big Brother Machine…and Fighting It is available only at amazon.com

Author John Perkins on Hoodwinked and Sam Ferguson in Buenos Aires. Perkins wrote the best seller Confessions of an Economic Hitmanand his new book blames unregulated capitalism and corporate greed for the 2008 global meltdown. Perkins has some good ideas for reining in corporate power while addressing climate change and other environmental issues. Ferguson, Thruthout.org’s correspondent in South America, updates his coverage of the war crimes trials in Argentina, where two of the defendants are the “Blond Angel” and “Tigre”–pseudonyms for soldiers who carried out torture and disappearances in the 1970’s. Ferguson also offers some parallel’s to Obama’s “administrative amnesty” for Bush-era war crimes by the US.