Nomi Prins talks about her book It Takes a Pillage and the failure to solve the financial crisis. Mark Lysgaard reads some poems from his book Babbling On In Babylon. Prins, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, reveals the total amount of cash and credit extended to banks and financial institutions is over $13 Trillion! She explains the culture, chemistry and politics of the industry, and names names. We talk about the myth of the “success” of TARP and Barney Frank’s re-regulation proposals. Prins says the real fix is to reinstate the Glass-Steagall act. Lysgaard takes the news of the day and writes incisive poems.

Journalist Lance Williams on Sen. Feinstein’s intervention in California’s water wars on behalf of a donor and pal; journalist Jason Leopold on PTSD and suicide among recent vets. Williams is a veteran investigative reporter, formerly with San Francisco’s Examiner and Chronicle newspapers–half of the duo who covered the Barry Bonds Balco scandal and almost went to jail for refusing to disclose sources. He is now at the Center for Investigative Reporting’s California Watch, and his first investigation reveals that Feinstein, at the behest of donor, friend and corporate farmer Stewart Resnick, demanded and got a new study of water distribution in California, where agribusiness already enjoys water rights greater than people and fisheries. Williams also updates the Bonds case and comments on the proposed federal shield law for reporters. Leopold is deputy managing editor of Truthout.org, and details his story on PTSD and suicide, and inadequate mental health support for troops in Afghanistan. He also talks about Obama’s December 1 speech escalating US presence in Afghanistan, and reports that the ACLU is turning up the heat on the bad legal positions of the Obama administration regarding torture, wiretapping and other issues. The tune by The Stranglers is “Vladimir and the Beast” and is on the Aural Sculpture CD, available at iTunes.

Top 25 Censored News Stories. Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, co-editors of Project Censored 2010 which reviews important news reports that were blacked out or under-reported by US media. They make a strong case for a “truth emergency” in our country, as downsized corporate TV and newspaper outlets continue to decline, presenting more tabloid distractions while ignoring important news. We touch on all 25 stories, so feel free to listen to this podcast in segments. Get full info and a range of independent media options at www.projectcensored.org–and sign up for their daily news update RSS feed at the bottom of the home page.

Holiday Music Special!! Dr. Elmo celebrates 30 years of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”. Dr. Elmo plays live in our studio and guides us through his expansive Christmas music catalog from Killer Fruitcake to Junk Bond Christmasto the rap version of Grandma, plus Santa’s E-mail from Nigeria, Christmas in the USA and the freaky Uncle Johnny’s Glass Eye. You get a special budget cutting message from our Governator and a stunning live rendition of Grandmaalong with some pet advice from the Doctor, a licensed veternarian. Downloads at iTunes and www.drelmo.com. Tech note: this show is a big file–we did not want to compress the music too much. Enjoy, and share with friends!

Journalists Reese Erlich and Robert Parry on Obama’s escalation in Afghanistan; Michael Blecker of Swords to Plowshares projects the human costs to the new US troops deployed; Gary Chew reviews the new film “The Road”. Erlich is the author of Target Iraq and The Iran Agenda and was in Afghanistan with Norman Solomon in September (podcasts 36 and 41). Parry is a frequent contributor to the PBC Show, and runs ConsortiumNews.com We play key excerpts from Obama’s Dec. 1 speech at West Point and offer critical commentary and context. We compare Obama to Bush in some respects, offer distinctions between Iraq and Afghanistan, and debunk the myth that the “surge” in Iraq succeeded. And we describe many factors that make Obama’s plan futile and politically dangerous. Swords to Plowshares has support vets since Vietnam, and Blecker projects that 30% of those who serve in Afghanistan will return with PTSD or traumatic brain injury. www.stp-sf.org Consistent with these downbeat developments, Gary Chew says The Road is bleak and powerful Oscar material. www.tulsatvmemories.com

British journalist Andy Worthington returns to update us on the delayed closure of Guantanamo and the Obama decision to try KSM and others in Federal Court in New York. Worthington is the author of The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and is co-producer and presenter of the new documentary Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo. We talk about the complacency of most Americans about the torture and detention schemes, about Binyam Mohammed (now released) and Shakar Amer (still held in isolation at Gitmo), and about the utter lawlessness of the Bush policies. We also talk frankly about Obama’s challenges from fellow Democrats that have hindered the plan to close Gitmo.

Journalists Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald discuss Afghanistan and how US foreign policy and military decisions are based on miscalculated and misunderstood Afghanistan politics, history, and culture. This is the eleventh installment of the Boiling Frogs interview series, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds.
Gould and Fitzgerald talk about the “real” history of Afghanistan; how the media misled the public by not laying out the fundamental facts about what was really going on, and the consequences; the differences between Pakistani Taliban and Afghani Taliban, and how our policy since 2001 has been emboldening them; the role of Pashtuns; and more!
Fitzgerald and Gould, a husband and wife team, began their experience in Afghanistan when they were the first American journalists to acquire permission to enter behind Soviet lines in 1981 for CBS News and produced a documentary, Afghanistan Between Three Worlds, for PBS. In 1983 they returned to Kabul with Harvard Negotiation project director Roger Fisher for ABC Nightline and contributed to the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour. They continued to research, write and lecture about the long-term run-up that led to the US invasion of Afghanistan. They are featured in an award winning documentary by Samira Goetschel. Titled, Our own Private Bin Laden which traces the creation of the Osama bin Laden mythology in Afghanistan and how that mythology has been used to maintain the “war on terror” approach of the Bush administration. Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story published by City Lights, January 2009 chronicles their three-decade-focus on Afghanistan and the media.