Brick TeeVee John Gault Ayn Rand Insanity!

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The John Gault Ayn Rand Insanity We begin this week with a shocking story by Mark Ames at AlterNet.org Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer Her works are treated as gospel by right-wing powerhouses like Alan Greenspan and Clarence Thomas, but Ayn Rand found early inspiration in 1920's murderer William Hickman. (NOTE: very graphic!) Skipping past the most disturbing passages... The fear that some felt at the time was that these philosophers' dangerous, yet nuanced ideas would fall into the hands of lesser minds, who would bastardize Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and poison the rest of us. This aptly describes Ayn Rand, whose philosophy developed out of her admiration for "Supermen" like Hickman. Rand's philosophy can be summed up by the title of one of her best-known books: The Virtue of Selfishness. She argues that all selfishness is a moral good, and all altruism is a moral evil, even "moral cannibalism," to use her words. To her, those who aren't like-minded sociopaths are "parasites," "lice" and "looters." But with Rand, there's something more pathological at work. She's out to make the world more sociopath-friendly so that people her hero William Hickman can reach their full potential, not held back by the morality of the "weak," whom Rand despised. Rand and her followers clearly got off on hating and bashing those they perceived as weak. This is exactly the sort of sadism that Rand's hero, Hickman, would have appreciated. What's really unsettling is that even former Central Bank chief Alan Greenspan, whose relationship with Rand dated back to the 1950s, did some parasite-bashing of his own. In response to a 1958 New York Times book review slamming Atlas Shrugged, Greenspan, defending his mentor, published a letter to the editor that ends: "Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Alan Greenspan." HA! "The Oracle" back in '58 cribbed that quote directly from "Atlas Shrugged". These are scary dangerous powerful people! Read more at Michael Prescott's website Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman. We urge you to read both. Very disturbing. And yes it's the same Alan Greenspan -- Stopped Clock of the U.S. Economy. Terrance Heath at HuffPoBusiness wrote back on 3 Aug 2010 Even a stopped clock, the saying goes, is right twice a day. Taken figuratively, it means that even the people who have been most disastrously, abysmally wrong can occasionally get something damn near right. In that sense, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan may be well on his way to being the stopped clock of the American Economy. Greenspan's latest foray into mainstream media relevance is an interesting departure from conservative messaging on economic matters. The oracle apparently has more to say, this time on extending the Bush tax cuts.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the push by congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts without offsetting the costs elsewhere could end up being "disastrous" for the economy. In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Greenspan expressed his disagreement with the conservative argument that tax cuts essentially pay for themselves by generating revenue and productivity among recipients. "They do not," said Greenspan. "I'm very much in favor of tax cuts but not with borrowed money and the problem that we have gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money," he said. "And at the end of the day that proves disastrous. My view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here."

This is on the heels of a Bloomberg interview in which Greenspan said that he would end the Bush tax cuts, and Congress should do the same. [video] In fact, as Steven D. and Steve Benen point out, Greenspan may be stepping on conservative messaging, but in doing so can't avoid tripping over himself, circa 2001. ..... Does Alan Greenspan have any idea what he's talking about now? Did he then? If he were on trial, this might be the point at which a prosecuting attorney would ask "Which Alan Greenspan should we believe?" As progressive, I'm not inclined to believe either. And I'm even less inclined to hail Greenspan, however right he may be this time. After all, based on his record, he's been wrong most of the time, much like the aforementioned clock — which leads me to think he's either not wrong, right in the wrong way, or up to something. We'll go with "up to something". Editor and senior writer at AlterNet Joshua Holland points out another Atlas-Hickman psycho How the GOP Is Committing Political Suicide With Ryan's Extremist Budget Plan Believing their own spin, the GOP has dramatically over-reached since then, alienating swing voters as it pursues a profoundly reactionary agenda. We saw it at the state level – as Talking-Points Memo noted, “Wisconsin's Scott Walker (R), Ohio's John Kasich (R), and Michigan's Rick Snyder (R) have seen their approval ratings fall to the point that polls show them losing hypothetical do-over elections with the candidates they beat last year” – and now it's beginning to show in the national polls. Last week, a Public Policy Polling survey revealed that those “fickle independents” who sent the Tea Party Congress to Washington “are turning against the GOP in a big way” just a few short months later. “Exit polls showed Independents supporting the GOP by a 19-point margin last year at 56-37,” noted the pollsters. “Now only 30 percent of those voters think that the Republican-controlled House is moving things in the right direction, compared to 44 percent who think things were better with the Democrats.” In the real world, Republicans won last year's popular vote by a 3-point margin, getting 21.6 percent of the vote while 18.6 percent went for the Dems (and almost 60 percent stayed home). And another reality, long understood by anyone who reads the polls, is that while people respond positively to the idea of limited government in the abstract, when it comes to specifics people love big government and most, if not all of what it does. They want a government that will educate their children and put out forest fires and pay for their million-dollar cancer treatments and make sure that big chemical companies aren't poisoning their water and keep them from having to eat cat food after they've put in 50 years in the workforce.Now go read 'Emergency manager' has now taken over elected officials...Elections? Doesn't matter anymore at abovetopsecret.com - filed under US POLITICAL MADNESS: Oh boy. Emergency manager cuts roles of Benton Harbor officials (detroit news in italics) In a move believed to be the first under sweeping new state legislation, Emergency Manager Joseph Harris suspendeddecision-making powers of city officials Friday. This is it. This is now the FIRST USE of this new law... Elections don't matter anymore in Michigan. You can bet this is just the beginning. The action is likely the first since Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law in March a new statute that grants more powers to emergency managers appointed by the Treasury Department to take over distressed schools and communities. At least one elected Benton Harbor official was sanguine about the order. "It doesn't bother me," said City Commissioner BryanJoseph. "I'm in favor of it." I'm in favor of it? "This is sad news for democracy in Michigan," said Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO. "With the stripping of all power of duly elected officials in Benton Harbor … we can now see the true nature of the emergency manager system." Well duh. Elections don't matter anymore. Not that they mattered before much... but still, with appointed officials taking over, YOU CANNOT REMOVE THEM... even if they screw up even more or openly steal money/are corrupt...And what's one of the powers they have? The new powers of emergency managers include setting aside collective bargaining. And guess what... it's not only in Benton Harbor that it is going on, but also in Ecorce and Pontiac. Emergency managers are in place at Detroit Public Schools and in the cities of Benton Harbor, Ecorse and Pontiac. OBVIOUS FASCISM HAS NOW ARRIVED. There are psychopaths everywhere! Certainly some sane people must step in sooner or later, right? How about the ACLU probes Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's Emergency Financial Management Law's Origins, Seeks Info About Lobbyist Influence over at NewsVine.com and the ACLU of Michigan news release HERE. Robert Scheer at TruthDig.com outlines The New Corporate World Order where so many "randians" seem to coagulate. ...The loss of well-paying jobs at multinationals like GE to other nations—54 percent of the GE workforce is foreign—exacerbates the plight of U.S. consumers while making the foreign customers even more attractive. Of course it will be argued that multinational corporations have the right to arrange their business as they see fit in order to maximize profit. But if that is the case, do beleaguered American taxpayers have to foot the bill? When those corporations run into trouble overseas because of financial hustles or hostile locals and need the diplomatic and military might of the U.S. government to protect their interests abroad, it is again the U.S. taxpayer who must pay to maintain this new world order. It is an order, as we see with three current wars and a military budget that rivals Cold War highs, that is contributing mightily to the U.S. government debt. More than half of all discretionary spending, the dollars that the Republicans in Congress now want to take out of needed domestic programs, is accounted for by defense spending. That defense spending to support a massive network of military bases and deployed weapons and troops is key to establishing an order in which the interests of American corporations are attended to. If the companies don’t feel that way, let them operate under the flag of Liberia or the Cayman Islands. No less important than U.S. military muscle is the power of the American government to construct and enforce a worldwide trade and finance structure to the advantage of U.S.-based multinational corporations. That is why the companies spend so much money lobbying Congress on matters ranging from regional trade agreements to international banking regulations. It is precisely the impact of trade agreements like NAFTA that has facilitated the erosion of well-paying jobs. And it was the deregulation of international banking standards, led by the U.S. Treasury Department under the past five presidents, that created the conditions for the recent disastrous housing and banking meltdown. Big government, the devil that Republicans love to inveigh against, is big precisely because it is so active in so many costly ways in serving the interests of our biggest corporations. Corporate lobbyists attest with their every breath that big government and big business are bedmates in a bountiful venture that impoverishes the rest of us. It is time to admit that we are, in practice if not surface appearance, close to the Chinese communist model of state-sponsored capitalism that sacrifices the interests of ordinary workers, be they in the public or private sector, for the exorbitant profits of the superrich. All this time we've been harping about the crappy voting machines (see Bev Harris' rant TOWARD MORE EFFECTIVE APPROACHES (AND WHY HACKING DEMOs ARE NOW INSANITY) how we need to organize to get hand-counted paper ballots) and now it seems elections don't matter anymore when the STATE can FIRE your mayor and council and any damn one they want so they can implement even MORE "austerity measures". We don't see any happy ending to this story. And you can bet each and every one of the Reptiles in state houses across the land are just salivating. And (DINO) Guv Cuomo is doing a fine job hisself. Watch out for Guv Moonbeam, too! How long will challenges to these archaic laws take? And with Federalist Society card-holders running the judicial branch do those lawsuits even stand an ice cube's chance in hell of winning? So we mark the 1st Anniversary of the BP-Deepwater Horizon disaster with the Examiner's Human Rights reporter Deborah Dupre Greenpeace proves BP controls Gulf oil research results They said it was safe Documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act by Greenpeace further prove BP officials' attempts to control findings from the $500m fund it pledged for independent research into consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe that reached its one-year anniversary Wednesday. This new evidence casts further doubts on Gulf oil related "research" reports that have appeared in mainstream media for almost 12 months, mostly dismissing genuine independent research proving that the dispersed oil is still in the Gulf, Gulf seafood is poisoned, and even a tiny amount of Corexit is poisonous. New documents show that BP officials openly discussed how to influence scientists' work supported by the fund created by the oil company in May, a month after the Gulf well exploded last year according to the Guardian that reports:

Those concerns go far beyond academic interest into the impact of the spill. BP faces billions in fines and penalties, and possible criminal charges arising from the disaster. Its total liability will depend in part on a final account produced by scientists on how much oil entered the gulf from its blown-out well, and the damage done to marine life and coastal areas in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The oil company disputes the government estimate that 4.1m barrels of oil entered the gulf.

... It takes no science degree to correctly guess which [BP-funded] scientists have suggested "cold weather" is to blame for the die-off. On March 4th, Dupré reported in the article, "BP-funded scientists: Cold weather killed baby dolphins":

BP has been paying scientists, organizations and even bloggers some of its half billion dollars it is allocating for "science" reports. It is paying for 'research,' for the altruistic reason of learning how to make the Gulf whole again.

Even informal research evidences a continuing public health crisis along the Gulf Coast. There's so much more to cover but we're up against a deadline! Rick Sanatorium, Crazy Train McCain, Joementum and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions seem to be the obvious brick target practice this week. See below for the corporomedia Beltway Bubalas navel-gazing guests (bet they won't mention Prof. Michel Chossudovsky OUR MAN IN TRIPOLI"In other words, the UN Security Council is in clear violation not only of the UN Charter but of its own resolutions. (The Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee - 1267). ") HA! . And don't miss BOB KINCAID's Friday on the Front Porch explaining the fraud of Good Friday and the meaning of Easter! Go to White Rose Society and download the show HERE (mp3)! Have a great week!

BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!_©

JAPAN IN CRISIS JAPAN IN CRISIS Democracy Now! reports on the disaster in Japan following a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami and the resulting nuclear crisis.
»»» Antonia Juhasz @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW "5 Million Barrels of Oil Does Not Disappear": Author, Activist Antonia Juhasz on the BP Spill, One Year Late April 18, 2011
»»» Phyllis Bennis @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Phyllis Bennis: U.K. Sends Troops into Libya as International Coalition Expands Mission to Include Regime Change April 19, 2011
»»» Longtime nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW As Radiation Continues to Leak from Japan Nuke Plant, Owners of Vermont Yankee Plant Sue to Stay Open April 19, 2011
»»» April 20 1st Anniversary of Deepwater Horizon WATCH ENTIRE SHOW NOW Wednesday, April 20, 2011 Today marks the one-year anniversary of the worst maritime oil spill in U.S. history. Last year on April 20, the Deepwater Horizon rig, leased by oil giant BP, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and releasing nearly 200 million gallons of oil, tens of millions of gallons of natural gas and 1.8 million gallons of other chemicals. A year later, how much has changed?
»»» Christina Larson, a contributing editor to Foreign Policy magazine @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Oscar-Nominated Director Tim Hetherington and Pulitzer Finalist Photojournalist Chris Hondros Killed on Front Lines of Libyan Conflict April 21, 2011 RELATED: ON-LINE EXCLUSIVE ‘Restrepo’ Director Tim Hetherington and Photojournalist Chris Hondros Killed While Reporting on Libyan Conflict in Misrata
»»» Mike Elk & Mark Ames @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Thought Control: Right-Wing Koch Brothers Caught Telling Thousands of Employees How to Vote The Nation magazine has revealed that Koch Industries sent a letter to most of its 50,000 employees on the eve of the November elections, advising them on whom to vote for and warning them of the dire consequences should they choose to vote otherwise. April 21, 2011
»»» Earth Day Special @ Democracy NOW! WATCH ENTIRE SHOW NOW Friday, April 22, 2011 with Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva and Van Jones and Tim DeChristopher and Bill McKibben.

»»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» FEATURED SHOW @ GRITtv WATCH East WillyB: Creating Socially Conscious Humor Online
»»» Community Video @ GRITtv MoveOn & Moby: Why 30,000 People are Fasting This is a moral issue; the budget is a moral document. We can take care of the deficit and rebuild our infrastructure and strengthen our safety net by reducing military spending and eliminating corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the rich. Or...
»»» Mike Papantonio, Maude Barlow & Shannon Biggs Mike Papantonio, Maude Barlow & Shannon Biggs, and Investing at Home
»»» Mike Papantonio @ GRITtv Mike Papantonio: One Year Later, BP's Still Avoiding Responsibility
»»» Longtime environmental reporter Mark Hertsgaard Mark Hertsgaard: Surviving Generation Hot
»»» The F Word @ GRITtv The F Word: Demonizing Taxes, Heightening Inequality
»»» The F Word @ GRITtv The F Word: Citizens United Allowing Workplace Propaganda
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  This Week on Ring of Fire! April 14, 2010
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  • Gareth Porter April 20, 2011: In a partial reprisal of his recent Antiwar Radio interview, Gareth Porter discusses Pakistan’s condemnation of out-of-control US drone strikes and espionage in the wake of the Raymond Davis affair; the surprisingly expansive US spy network in Pakistan; targeted drone assassinations that serve little purpose in the “war on terror;” and how a military coup against Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki might help the Pentagon stay in Iraq past the 2011 deadline – unless Moqtada al-Sadr has something to say about it. This recording is from the KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles broadcast of April 15th.
  • Thomas E. WoodsApril 21, 2011: Thomas E. Woods, author of Rollback: Repealing Big Government Before the Coming Fiscal Collapse, discusses the pivotal events (Quebec Act, the “shot heard ’round the world“) preceding the Revolutionary War; the persistent myths surrounding the Civil War, southern secession and slavery; how the Union victory transformed the country into a “nation” with a strong central government and budding imperialist ambitions; and the antiwar case for a gold standard monetary system.
  • Jesse Trentadue April 21, 2011: Jesse Trentadue, attorney and brother of Kenneth Trentadue (who was probably tortured and killed by FBI agents mistaking him for Richard Lee Guthrie a.k.a. John Doe No. 2 in the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing), discusses the elaborate coverup of Kenneth’s murder while in federal custody; Guthrie’s 1996 “suicide” in a Kentucky jail just before he could fulfill a tell-all plea deal; the many documents dug up by Jesse’s tireless FOIA lawsuits; and the approaching court battle on OKC surveillance tapes that should show Timothy McVeigh and the Ryder truck (and John Doe No. 2?) but instead are missing crucial seconds or just “can’t be found” by the FBI.
  • Anthony Gregory April 23, 2011: Anthony Gregory, Editor in Chief of Campaign for Liberty, discusses his article “From Waco to Libya: 18 Years of Humanitarian Mass Murder;” the ATF’s “Operation Showtime” raid on the Branch Davidians, designed as a public relations stunt; going from bad to worse at Waco, with the FBI in charge and special forces soldiers set loose on civilians; and the crux of government humanitarianism: killing people in order to save them.
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Brick TeeVee & The Scary New Red Scare!

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The Scary New Red Scare REGULATORY CAPTURE (wiki) In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as an encouragement for large firms to produce negative externalities. The agencies are called "captured agencies". Regular readers of BTV know transnational corporations control the U.S. Media. And from this comes the shaping of "public opinion" through their myriad "public relations" parrots think-tanks that blanket our "public" airwaves. Whenever you hear about a "poll of the American people" it is NOT a measure of "public opinion" but more so a measure of "how well the propaganda is working". Who and where are they polling? And who sponsors (read: pays for) these polls? Eh? And if you look at their methodology it's usually around a thousand "potential voters" out of 300 million U.S. citizens and the paid-for pollsters use some abstract "secret formula" to sell their favored transnational corporation agenda to their "clients" that get "the public" in an "uproar" about the daily conflict-du-jour by effect distracting the populace of WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON the "shiny object deflection" technique in spades. Dean Baker (originally on TruthOut.org but they are still recovering their site) lays it out: 'Shock Doctrine': GOP Elites Point a Gun at the Middle Class If there is any doubt that our political system is controlled by an elite who is completely removed from the bulk of the population, this response to the Ryan plan ended it. There is nothing at all serious about the Ryan plan. It is a naked attempt to redistribute yet more money to the country's rich at the expense of everyone else. ... In principle, the country's elite should be laying low right now. After all, their greed and ineptitude has given us the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. But after getting the Wall Street banks back on their feet with trillions of dollars of government subsidized loans, the elite are once again making a full-frontal assault on the living standards of the middle class. Last week it was Medicare, but they promise to be back to attack Social Security in the not too distant future. The ostensible rationale for this attack is the country's huge budget deficit. This is garbage. Garbage indeed. Now right out of the New McCarthy Red Scare playbook The Nation's Ari Berman outlines Journalism Under Siege at Northwestern Medill Innocence Project On Thursday, March 17, Eric Caine was freed from a maximum-security prison after spending twenty-five years behind bars for a double murder he did not commit. Caine’s release was ordered by a Cook County judge after Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess, director of the Medill Innocence Project, and his students uncovered evidence that Caine had been brutally beaten by a now-disgraced Chicago detective into confessing the crime. Caine was the twelfth wrongly convicted prisoner that Protess and his students help free from prison, including five from Death Row. ... Yet when he should have been celebrating, Protess received some very bad news. On the same day Caine was released, John Lavine, dean of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, curtly informed Protess that he would not be teaching his world-renowned investigative journalism class at Northwestern in the spring quarter. After thirty years of teaching, his career at Northwestern was seemingly over, with no explanation offered for why. For the last three years, Protess has been locked in a prolonged battle with Chicago prosecutors after Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez unveiled an unprecedented subpoena demanding all the records of Protess and his students concerning the case of Anthony McKinney, who Protess alleges has been behind bars for nearly thirty-five years for a murder he did not commit. For the full backstory, read The Nation’s editorial from last year, “Stalling Justice.” After initially defending Protess, Northwestern abruptly turned against him last fall, siding with prosecutors on the subpoena and culminating in Lavine’s sudden suspension of him last week. ... Protess’s suspension from Medill raises very disturbing questions about the future of what has long been regarded as one of the country’s foremost journalism schools. “From day one in my conflict with the university, it was apparent there was virtually no appreciation for in-depth investigative reporting that serves a higher social good,” Protess told me. Just last week, Lavine, whose specialty is media marketing, successfully pushed to change the name of the school from the Medill School of Journalism to the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications (really rolls off the tongue). Many alumni, faculty and media critics scoffed at the name change, but it’s no laughing matter. When he became dean, Lavine spoke of “blowing up the whole curriculum” but, as Thomas Frank of Harper’s noted, “the only thing he seems to have blown up is the division between journalism and marketing.” The Nation's Eric Alterman lays it bare. Fox: The Liars' Network Remember, Fox continually insists that while Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly are “opinion” shows, its news programs can be trusted to play it straight. So again, the naïve among us might imagine that its executives would evince some discomfort with the network’s managing editor admitting to being a proud and purposeful liar. Alas, nobody at Fox appeared to notice—not even anchor Bret Baier, who, just a week before Media Matters broke the story of the taped Sammon cruise confession, had gone on The Daily Show to humiliate himself with the argument that at Fox, “we respect the viewers’ ability to discern” between opinion and hard news. These events demonstrate yet again that the problem with Fox is not that it’s conservative. It’s that it lies. Any discussion of its role in American political life is itself a lie if it rests on that foundation. When a “real” journalist—as Baier appears to imagine himself—lends his name to Fox, he is simply empowering these lies. When journalists from media enterprises that profess to value truth defend Fox—as Jake Tapper of ABC News did in response to the Obama administration’s unsuccessful 2009 attempt to isolate it from the other networks—they are enabling its lies. And when politicians, pundits and anyone else not formally employed by Rupert Murdoch or Roger Ailes appear on Fox without pointing out that they are there to tell the truth for once, then they, too, are participating in a scam at the bottom of which is not only the comforting of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us but also the undermining of our democracy under the weight of a teetering tower of lies. ALterman continues with Happy Birthday, Rupert Murdoch! Of course, this is rather small potatoes compared with the hosts and guests who frequently promote the false and destructive notion that Barack Obama is a Kenya-born Muslim who hates all white people—including, presumably, his mother. (Murdoch, one must recall, said he agreed with Beck’s comments that Obama hates white people.) As if that’s not dangerous enough, there is the recent campaign of anti-Semitic slander against Holocaust survivor George Soros on Beck’s show and the ginning up of anti-Arab racism on all Fox programming. It’s impossible to know what, exactly, motivates any act of violence by a disturbed person—say, in the case of the attack on Gabrielle Giffords and those around her by a crazed gunman. But what of Beck fan Byron Williams’s desire to take out the progressive Tides Foundation, a frequent Beck target—a crime foiled only when California Highway Patrol officers pulled Williams over on a DUI charge? It’s no accident that such tactics are so prevalent at Fox; they are the rule rather than the exception at Murdoch properties. Was it really such a shock, for instance, when it was recently reported that Murdoch’s top honcho, Roger Ailes, allegedly instructed ex-HarperCollins employee Judith Regan to lie to federal investigators in order to protect Rudy Giuliani? As mayor, Giuliani had pressured Time Warner Cable after it initially declined to include Fox News on its menu of channels. And is it really so amazing that the British staff of Murdoch’s News of the World were widely engaged in criminal wiretapping to try to scoop their competition? When you consider all this, you almost want to give ex–New York Post gossip columnist Richard Johnson a Pulitzer Prize. All he did was regularly accept cash bribes in exchange for using his column to promote the properties of those handing over the cash. (Johnson was not publicly disciplined when this corruption was revealed.) If Murdoch is judged as “first and foremost a journalist,” the inevitable conclusion is that he is an enabler and purveyor of lies, hatred and criminal activity in the service of his ideological, financial and personal interests.Glenn Greenwald tops off the Beltway Bubalas Bash at Salon The Washington Post's dependence on the government it covers But what I found most notable is how dependent is this industry -- including The Washington Post Co. -- on staying in the good graces of the Federal Government. Because these schools target low-income students, the vast majority of their income is derived from federal loans. Because there have been so many deceptive practices and defaults, the Federal Government has become much more aggressive about regulating these schools and now play a vital role in determining which ones can thrive and which ones fail. Put another way, the company that owns The Washington Post is almost entirely at the mercy of the Federal Government and the Obama administration -- the entities which its newspaper ostensibly checks and holds accountable. "By the end of 2010, more than 90 percent of revenue at Kaplan’s biggest division and nearly a third of The Post Co.’s revenue overall came from the U.S. government." The Post Co.'s reliance on the Federal Government extends beyond the source of its revenue; because the industry is so heavily regulated, any animosity from the Government could single-handedly doom the Post Co.'s business -- a reality of which they are well aware ... The Post is hardly alone among major media outlets in being owned by an entity which relies on the Federal Government for its continued profitability. NBC News and MSNBC were long owned by GE, and now by Comcast, both of which desperately need good relations with government officials for their profits. The same is true of CBS (owned by Viacom), ABC (owned by Disney), and CNN (owned by TimeWarner). For each of these large corporations, alienating federal government officials is about the worst possible move it could make -- something of which all of its employees, including its media division employees, are well aware. But the Post Co.'s dependence is even more overwhelming than most. How can a company which is almost wholly dependent upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. Government possibly be expected to serve as a journalistic "watchdog" over that same Government? The very idea is absurd. The whole point of the First Amendment's free press guarantee is that adversarial journalism is possible only if journalists are independent of political power. Yet the U.S. now has exactly the opposite dynamic: most major media outlets are owned by corporations that are anything but independent of government: they are quite dependent upon political officials for their profit in countless ways. We have anything but an independent press, which is another way of saying we have anything but a free press. Chilling, isn't it? Speaking of chilling, we go to Will Potter at AlterNet How I Almost Got Put on the Domestic Terrorist List for Handing Out Leaflets Will Potter explains how confronting animal abuse made the government target him as a terrorist -- and taught him to never hide from those who try to silence him. Through my reporting, I learned that environmental and animal rights activists are being labeled terrorists not because of violence, but because of their beliefs. Corporations and the politicians who represent them have waged a coordinated campaign to push their political agenda. They have sent out press releases accusing mainstream organizations like the Sierra club, PETA, and Greenpeace of supporting “eco-terrorism.” the children’s movie Hoot has been dubbed “soft-core eco-terrorism for kids.” American Idol star Carrie Underwood was smeared as supporting terrorists when she encouraged her fans to support the Humane Society. Examples like this would be funny if they had not worked their way into the top levels of government. In 2006, politicians proposed “eco-terrorism” legislation similar to bills that had been introduced at the state level for years. Because of my reporting, colleagues at the ACLU recommended that I testify at a hearing by the house Judiciary committee. Leading democrats on that committee agreed. Suddenly, the fears that I thought I had overcome began to crawl back into my head. If I challenged this legislation, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, would I be smeared as an “animal rights terrorist”? Would FBI agents fulfill their promises from years ago and tell members of congress that I am on a domestic terrorist list? Would the representative from Wisconsin turn to me and ask, “Mr. Potter, are you now, or have you ever been, a vegetarian?” ...I decided I would not be a token gesture of dissent in their spectacle of democracy. Rather than propose modest tweaks to the bill, I testified that lawmakers must reject it in its entirety. I said that scarce terrorism resources should not be exploited to protect corporate interests. In my testimony, I compared the “eco-terrorist” legislation and scare mongering to one of the darkest periods of U.S. history, the communist witch hunts of the Red Scare. ... Months later, the law was rushed through the House of Representatives with only six members of congress in the room. Most lawmakers were breaking ground for a new memorial honoring Martin Luther King Jr. when legislation was being passed that labeled King’s tactics—including nonviolent civil disobedience—as terrorism. It was a major defeat, and for the corporations who supported the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, it was only the beginning. Since then, similar legislation has been introduced in many other states. ... It can be unsettling and frightening to learn how far the government has gone to attack political activists, and sometimes I wonder if spreading this information simply makes more people afraid. But time and again, in dozens of venues, from the New York City Bar Association to anarchist bookstores, I have seen an incredible thing happen when people learn about these issues and then turn to their neighbors. Their conversations are never about how they are afraid; they are about how they are angry and want to take action. The best way to handle the fear these scare tactics create, I learned, is to confront it head on. “Never turn your back on fear,” Hunter S. Thompson wrote. “It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.” If that's not chilling enough, Mark A. Adams reported at DailyCensored.com back in January Attorneys Attack Rights of Citizen Journalists The Florida Bar has proposed a new rule to eliminate coverage of court proceedings by citizen journalists. The Bar’s proposed rule prohibits anyone other than an official court reporter or an employee of a traditional media outlet, as defined by Florida Statutes § 90.5015, from using any device which can make video or audio recording from being brought into a court including laptop computers. Of course, the proposed rule allows the courts to continue to record you, but unfortunately, the courts usually don’t want to give up their own recordings without a fight even though they are required to do so. ... As usual, the people who control the Florida Bar didn’t bother to consider any case law before trying to create a lower class of journalists. If they had bothered to look anything up (assuming that they are actually attempting to uphold the law), they would have found that the Florida Supreme Court previously held: "Freedom of the press is not, and has never been a private property right granted to those who own the news media." TruthDig's Chris Hedges explains Why the United States Is Destroying Its Education System Teachers, under assault from every direction, are fleeing the profession. Even before the “reform” blitzkrieg we were losing half of all teachers within five years after they started work—and these were people who spent years in school and many thousands of dollars to become teachers. How does the country expect to retain dignified, trained professionals under the hostility of current conditions? I suspect that the hedge fund managers behind our charter schools system—whose primary concern is certainly not with education—are delighted to replace real teachers with nonunionized, poorly trained instructors. To truly teach is to instill the values and knowledge which promote the common good and protect a society from the folly of historical amnesia. The utilitarian, corporate ideology embraced by the system of standardized tests and leadership academies has no time for the nuances and moral ambiguities inherent in a liberal arts education. Corporatism is about the cult of the self. It is about personal enrichment and profit as the sole aim of human existence. And those who do not conform are pushed aside. .... The truly educated become conscious. They become self-aware. They do not lie to themselves. They do not pretend that fraud is moral or that corporate greed is good. They do not claim that the demands of the marketplace can morally justify the hunger of children or denial of medical care to the sick. They do not throw 6 million families from their homes as the cost of doing business. Thought is a dialogue with one’s inner self. Those who think ask questions, questions those in authority do not want asked. They remember who we are, where we come from and where we should go. They remain eternally skeptical and distrustful of power. And they know that this moral independence is the only protection from the radical evil that results from collective unconsciousness. The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience. There is a huge difference, as Socrates understood, between teaching people what to think and teaching them how to think. Those who are endowed with a moral conscience refuse to commit crimes, even those sanctioned by the corporate state, because they do not in the end want to live with criminals—themselves. Those who can ask the right questions are armed with the capacity to make a moral choice, to defend the good in the face of outside pressure. And this is why the philosopher Immanuel Kant puts the duties we have to ourselves before the duties we have to others. The standard for Kant is not the biblical idea of self-love—love thy neighbor as thyself, do unto others as you would have them do unto you—but self-respect. What brings us meaning and worth as human beings is our ability to stand up and pit ourselves against injustice and the vast, moral indifference of the universe. Once justice perishes, as Kant knew, life loses all meaning. Those who meekly obey laws and rules imposed from the outside—including religious laws—are not moral human beings. The fulfillment of an imposed law is morally neutral. The truly educated make their own wills serve the higher call of justice, empathy and reason. Socrates made the same argument when he said it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. “The greatest evil perpetrated,” Hannah Arendt wrote, “is the evil committed by nobodies, that is, by human beings who refuse to be persons.” Some items we missed last week...Yves Smith writes at naked capitlism Banks Win Again: Weak Mortgage Settlement Proposal Undermined by Phony Consent Decrees and in a releated story ACLU Taking Aim at Florida’s Kangaroo Foreclosure Courts Per Lisa Epstein and April Charney, the ACLU has announced it is contesting the procedures used in Florida’s recently created foreclosure courts: The irony is that robosigning has taken care of the Florida court docket; many cases have been withdrawn and not refiled as banks try to get a grip on their paperwork. So the ACLU’s might serve to get a now-pointless court system dissolved. ACLU Florida Petition April 7, 2011 (scribd) & (ACLU pdf) plus ACLU's press release ACLU Challenges Lack of Due Process in Florida’s “Foreclosure Courts” (scribd) Seems the Florida ACLU must read Rolling Stone: Invasion of the Home Snatchers - Matt Taibbi on how foreclosure courts are helping big banks screw over homeowners James Kowalski [a former homicide prosecutor who is now defending homeowners] has seen hundreds of cases like the one he's presenting this morning. It started back in 2006, when he went to Pennsylvania to conduct what he thought would be a routine deposition of an official at the lending giant GMAC. What he discovered was that the official — who had sworn to having personal knowledge of the case — was, in fact, just a "robo-signer" who had signed off on the file without knowing anything about the actual homeowner or his payment history. (Kowalski's clients, like most of the homeowners he represents, were actually making their payments on time; in this particular case, a check had been mistakenly refused by GMAC.) Following the evidence, Kowalski discovered what has turned out to be a systemwide collapse of the process for documenting mortgages in this country. If you're foreclosing on somebody's house, you are required by law to have a collection of paperwork showing the journey of that mortgage note from the moment of issuance to the present. You should see the originating lender (a firm like Countrywide) selling the loan to the next entity in the chain (perhaps Goldman Sachs) to the next (maybe JP Morgan), with the actual note being transferred each time. But in fact, almost no bank currently foreclosing on homeowners has a reliable record of who owns the loan; in some cases, they have even intentionally shredded the actual mortgage notes. That's where the robo-signers come in. To create the appearance of paperwork where none exists, the banks drag in these pimply entry-level types — an infamous example is GMAC's notorious robo-signer Jeffrey Stephan, who appears online looking like an age-advanced photo of Beavis or Butt-Head — and get them to sign thousands of documents a month attesting to the banks' proper ownership of the mortgages. This isn't some rare goof-up by a low-level cubicle slave: Virtually every case of foreclosure in this country involves some form of screwed-up paperwork. "I would say it's pretty close to 100 percent," says Kowalski. An attorney for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid tells me that out of the hundreds of cases she has handled, fewer than five involved no phony paperwork. "The fraud is the norm," she says. Matt Taibbi's latest in RS asks The Real Housewives of Wall Street: Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs? But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches. Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income. The technical name of the program that Mack and Karches took advantage of is TALF, short for Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility. But the federal aid they received actually falls under a broader category of bailout initiatives, designed and perfected by Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, called "giving already stinking rich people gobs of money for no fucking reason at all." If you want to learn how the shadow budget works, follow along. This is what welfare for the rich looks like. ... It's hard to imagine a pair of people you would less want to hand a giant welfare check to — yet that's exactly what the Fed did. Just two months before the Macks bought their fancy carriage house in Manhattan, Christy and her pal Susan launched their investment initiative called Waterfall TALF. Neither seems to have any experience whatsoever in finance, beyond Susan's penchant for dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. But with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment. So how did the government come to address a financial crisis caused by the collapse of a residential-mortgage bubble by giving the wives of a couple of Morgan Stanley bigwigs free money to make essentially risk-free investments in student loans and commercial real estate? The answer is: by degrees. The history of the bailout era reads like one of those awful stories about what happens when a long-dormant criminal compulsion goes unchecked. The Peeping Tom next door stares through a few bathroom windows, doesn't get caught, and decides to break in and steal a pair of panties. Next thing you know, he's upgraded to homemade dungeons, tri-state serial rampages and throwing cheerleaders into a panel truck. It was the same with the bailouts. And h/t to our own Badger donjo for this item at HuffPo Goldman Sachs Chief Blankfein Could Face Criminal Prosecution For Role In Financial Crisis Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, will recommend that Goldman executives who testified before his panel, including chairman and chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, be referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, the Michigan Democrat announced Wednesday. Members of the subcommittee will now deliberate Levin's proposal. ... But the firm was just one target of a sweeping, 639-page report (pdf) by the Senate panel into the causes of the crisis. Hardly a fluke occurrence, the meltdown was the product of a deeply corrupt financial system, one fueled by profit-hungry banks that deceived their clients, and overseen by lax regulators who were complicit in the firms' chronic abuse of the most fundamental rules of the game, the report concludes. The investigation found a "financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing," Levin said. ... Investigators pored over millions of pages of internal Goldman documents and correspondence. They found evidence of traders boasting about how they sold their clients "shitty" deals, and discovered documents that detailed how the storied investment bank -- which has long maintained it didn't make a firm-wide bet against American homeowners -- reversed course over a three-month period in late 2006 through 2007, shedding bets that the value of subprime mortgage-linked investments would rise. .... The firm wanted "to cause maximum pain," Michael Swenson, a head mortgage trader at Goldman, wrote in a May 25, 2007 email documented in the report. ... By that point, many Wall Street players were betting on homeowners to default. The price of placing such bets was rising. Goldman wanted a cheaper way in. As part of the plan, another Goldman unit was to buy those positions at a lower price, enabling them not only to add to their growing bet that the American homeowner would eventually default, but to do so at a lower price. ...The panel caught one of its former traders, Greg Lippmann, referring to such securities over email as "crap" and "pigs," according to the report. ... The banker who oversaw Lippman's unit, Michael Lamont, told a colleague at another firm how Deutsche was rushing to sell these financial instruments "before the market falls off a cliff," according to a February 2007 email Lamont sent. Meanwhile, buyers of the securities were never told.At one point, Lippman described the creation and selling of such instruments as a "Ponzi scheme." He also said he would "try to dupe someone" into buying a particularly risky mortgage-linked security he himself was being asked to purchase, according to the report. See Taibbi's interview with CENK UYGUR of the Young Turks below via MAX KEISER. We'd like to see the Obama Justice Department try using their infamous "national security" rationale for this one haha! Let's face it if ANY of US came to court with FALSIFIED DOCUMENTS we would be charged with FRAUD and sent away to make small rocks out of big ones for a long time, RIGHT? Seems PAUL KRUGMAN is equally baffled: The President Is Missing What have they done with President Obama? What happened to the inspirational figure his supporters thought they elected? Who is this bland, timid guy who doesn’t seem to stand for anything in particular? ... But let’s give the president the benefit of the doubt, and suppose that $38 billion in spending cuts — and a much larger cut relative to his own budget proposals — was the best deal available. Even so, did Mr. Obama have to celebrate his defeat? Did he have to praise Congress for enacting “the largest annual spending cut in our history,” as if shortsighted budget cuts in the face of high unemployment — cuts that will slow growth and increase unemployment — are actually a good idea? ... You might have expected the president’s team not just to reject this proposal, but to see it as a big fat political target. But while the G.O.P. proposal has drawn fire from a number of Democrats — including a harsh condemnation from Senator Max Baucus, a centrist who has often worked with Republicans — the White House response was a statement from the press secretary expressing mild disapproval. What’s going on here? C'mon Paul! As a Nobel Economics Laureate YOU KNOW what's going on: REGULATORY CAPTURE following the evangelical "free-market" Milton-Friedman-fantasy Chicago-school Raygun "trickle down" economics. And President Not Sure is sure about maintaining the status quo for the transnational corporations who fight for their "right" to pollute we citizens' air, water, land and airwaves while Obama will raise $billions!$ for reelection which will only feed their (HIS?) media owners' bank accounts to further the transnational corporate agenda AGAINST us from workers' rights to global climate change. We want a dollar for every time The Great O! mentions "clean coal" or "nuclear energy" as a "solution"! Of course the Sunday Bobbleheads will speak endlessly about "the budget" with the WH Limo shuttling Timmy Giethner on Meet the David and This Anampout who then has a panel of Reptiles to tell us it's all organized labor's fault (teachers) and "entitlement spending" (your gramma and grampa and homeless or disabled people) for the depression not off-the-books ILLEGAL war-spending accounting by their hero gwb. Face the Bob gets MARK WARNER to confront the idiot-savant PAUL RYAN on his ridiculous smoke-n-mirrors budget proposal (listen to PAUL KRUGMAN on NPR Looking At Ryan's Budget Blueprint for a great smackdown!) while State of Candy lets RAND PAUL and ANTHONY WEINER battle it out before The Donald tells Candy why he should be president. Lots more sense below in the BTV Alerts and our regulars, including another interview with Our Man in Pipelineistan PEPE ESCOBAR at AntiWar Radio, DN!'s Fukushima coverage, and PBC's "interview" with President Not Sure and GARETH PORTER. Good items! Click on SOMETHING, ANYTHING and be instantly smarter! The Brick TeeVee Crew is enjoying the new baseball season with the Tribe in FIRST PLACE, something that hasn't happened since 2007. Their Single-A club the Lake County Captains (2010 champs of the Midwest League) opened their home season with a NO-HITTER spread among three pitchers! Take THAT Midwest League! It's still too cold and rainy to begin the garden so the Crew is looking forward to the NBA playoffs first round coverage, as the Cavaliers finally ended one of their worst seasons beating up on the Wizards to end the season and said good-bye to their 39-year play-by-play broadcaster JOE TAIT. As Joe would say, "Have a good night everybody!"

BRICK TEEVEE ALERTS!_©

JAPAN IN CRISIS JAPAN IN CRISIS Democracy Now! reports on the disaster in Japan following a massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami and the resulting nuclear crisis.
»»» Economist Jeffrey Sachs @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW "Don’t Punish the Poor" Economist Jeffrey Sachs Slams Obama-GOP Budget Deal April 11, 2011
»»» Thomas Breuer, head of the Climate and Energy Unit for Greenpeace Germany @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Nuclear Catastrophe in Japan “Not Equal to Chernobyl, But Way Worse” April 12, 2011
»»» Democracy Now! correspondent Anjali Kamat reports from Cairo @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW The Army vs. the People?: A Democracy Now! Special Report from Egypt April 12, 2011
»»» Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and the City College of New York @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Expert: Despite Japanese Gov’t Claims of Decreasing Radiation, Fukushima a "Ticking Time Bomb" and Dr. Michio Kaku on "Physics of the Future: How Science Will Change Daily Life by 2100" April 13, 2011
»»» Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW While Obama Touts Compromise with GOP, Progressive Lawmakers Unveil "People’s Budget" April 14, 2011
»»» Democracy Now! Budget Roundtable @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Roundtable: Assessing Obama’s Budget Plan & State of U.S. Economy with Author Thomas Frank, Rev. Jim Wallis, and Activist/Philosopher Grace Lee Boggs To discuss President Obama’s budget talk and the state of the American economy, we are joined by three guests: Thomas Frank, a columnist at Harper’s Magazine and the author of several books, including The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Ruined Government, Enriched Themselves, and Beggared the Nation; Rev. Jim Wallis, the founder of the Sojourners Community and editor of Sojourners magazine, who has been on a hunger fast since March 28 to protest congressional budget cuts; and Grace Lee Boggs, 95-year-old activist, author and philosopher based in Detroit. She has been involved with the civil rights, Black Power, labor, environmental justice, and feminist movements over the past seven decades. Her new book The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, has just been published. April 14, 2011
»»» British journalist Nicholas Shaxson @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Offshore Banking and Tax Havens Have Become Heart of Global Economy April 15, 2011
»»» Author Mark Hertsgaard @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW As Congress Slashes EPA, Climate Funding, Author Mark Hertsgaard on "Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth" April 15, 2011

»»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» FEATURED SHOW @ GRITtv WATCH Janus Metz: Armadillo, Kill Teams, and the Savagery of War
»»» National Conference for Media Reform @ GRITtv National Conference for Media Reform This weekend, GRITtv headed to Boston with lots of our favorite media makers, activists, and thinkers for the National Conference for Media Reform. Laura was the emcee for the opening plenary, and then stuck around all weekend, talking about money, media and politics with movers and shakers. Check out some of what we saw at the conference!
»»» Frances Fox Piven & Cornel West @ GRITtv Frances Fox Piven & Cornel West: Teaching to Fight Back
»»» Independent Journalist Nancy Goldstein Nancy Goldstein: Losing Sleep over Bradley Manning
»»» Longtime environmental reporter Mark Hertsgaard Mark Hertsgaard: Still Not Getting the Message on Nuclear Power
»»» The F Word @ GRITtv The F Word: Time For Obama To Join the Fight
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!_©!
»»» NASCAR on FOX It's the Aaron's 499 on the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway! 1 pm et
»»» MLB on TBS Blue Jays @ Red Sox! 1:30 pm et
»»» Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Rangers @ Yankees! 8 pm et
»»» Monday Night Baseball on ESPN Brewers @ Phillies! 7 pm et
»»» NBA on TNT The Playoffs begin! First round coverage all week on TNT, ABC, ESPN and NBA-TV! Check yer local listings! Talladega Superspeedway
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!_©
MOVE TO AMEND! www.movetoamend.org
SIGN HERE NOW!
Also visit Rep Alan Grayson's site www.savedemocracy.net
SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT See CourageToResist.org EMAIL UPDATE! Help us reach our goal of a half million by signing the petition, and passing it on. Add your name! AND Vote for Bradley in the 2011 Time Magazine 100 Poll here! UPDATE! 250 of the US's most eminent legal scholars have signed a letter protesting the treatment of accused Wikileaks source Pfc. Bradley Manning. Manning is accused of passing thousands of secret government documents to WikiLeaks and has been charged with "aiding the enemy", a capital offense. As reported in the Guardian, the letter says that Manning is being held in "degrading and inhumane conditions" that are not only illegal and unconstitutional, but could amount to torture. The letter was published in the New York Review of Books and written by Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School and Yochai Benkler of Harvard Law School. Add your name to this petition Eminent US legal scholars protest 'torture' of Bradley Manning.
DONATE YOUR OLD CELL PHONES TO T.J. MARTELL FOUNDATION Help save lives. Donate your old & used iPhone, Blackeberries, Droid and other phonesto help the T.J. Martell Foundations fund life-saving cancer & AIDS research. The T.J. Martell Foundation is the music industry's largest foundation funding cutting edge medical research focused on finding cures for leukemia, cancer and AIDS. The Foundation sources and supports early-stage research projects aimed at developing more effective treatments for patients which otherwise might not be funded. For more information, go to www.tjmartellfoundation.org

B R I C K T E E V E E
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The essential guide for watching government propaganda
IRAQ: 4,447 US Military Dead as of April 17, 2011
AFGHANISTAN: 1,534 US Military Dead as of April 17, 2011
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative

• This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour - JAKE TAPPER sits in
  • Fact Checking ABC's "This Week" at NPR "On the Media" - Jake Tapper, interim host of ABC's "This Week," liked the idea of fact-checking his guests' comments, so he set up a partnership with Politifact, a non-partisan fact-checking organization. See Politifact Statements ABC News 'This Week'
  • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
  • Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill)
  • Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fl)
  • Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC)
  • Rep. Allen West (R-Fl)
  • Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen
  • ROUNDTABLE: George Will, economist Alice Rivlin of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, political strategist Matthew Dowd and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick

• Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
  • Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
  • Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

• 60 Minutes (CBS)
  • The Case of Beckett Brennan - The government recently sent out guidelines on how college judicial review boards should handle the rising incidence of campus sexual assault. Beckett Brennan says the University of the Pacific's board bungled her case, spurring her to come forward to say she was sexually assaulted by three of the school's athletes. Katie Couric reports. Graham Messick and Ashley Velie are the producers.
  • The Co-Founder - Lesley Stahl speaks to Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Paul Allen in his first interview about his upcoming book in which he criticizes his Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates. Shachar-Bar-On is the producer.

• Meet the Press (NBC) Host David Gregory
  • Meet the Facts at NPR "On the Media" - Last December, NYU professor Jay Rosen proposed something simple yet revolutionary: why don't the Sunday morning chat shows fact check their guests? After "Meet the Press" host David Gregory declined, two college students launched a website to do it for him. One of them, Chas Danner, explains what they're trying to accomplish. See their website MeetTheFacts.com updating soon!
  • Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
  • Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick
  • ROUNDTABLE: Fmr. chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan; Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Fmr. Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-MI); author Jon Meacham; and author of the new book "Fail Up," PBS’s Tavis Smiley.

• State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN)
  At 9 AM ET, Candy talks to the power players: politicians, business leaders and international newsmakers who will make Monday morning's headlines. At NOON ET, Candy wraps it all up with fresh interviews and the best of the earlier hours.
  • Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky
  • Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner
  • Former CIA Director, Gen. Michael Hayden (Ret.)
  • former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister
  • Donald Trump

• HEAD ON RADIO with Bob Kincaid
  
  Headon Radio with Bob Kincaid 6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific, 2300 GMT. Duration: 3 hrs. To be part of the conversation on Head-on Radio, call toll-free (877) 443-2366, or use our Liberal community line at 304-658-3333. Email: bob [at] headonradio [dot] com.
  • PRAYER MEETIN' WEDNESDAY!!!!!! Uber-Pope Bob exposes the latest antics by the Regressive Religious Right. Listen HERE (mp3)!
  Amen to White Rose Society! Donate HERE!

• NEW! GREEN NEWS REPORT
  
  The Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen: 6 minutes of green news, politics, analysis & snarky comment!
  Go see greennews.bradblog.com!
  • 'Green News Report' - April 14, 2011 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: California doubles down on clean energy; Obama vows to continue the fight as well in budget speech ... PLUS: Renewables vs. Nukes: More jobs in renewables, so why hasn't the President mentioned that? ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
  IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): Should kids be exposed to more or less toxic pollution?' Loss of penguins tied to loss of krill; Shooting badgers to be legal under plans for 'big society cull'; BP executives brace for a stormy shareholders' meeting; Times Square air cleaner now that cars are gone; Iowa's topsoil washing away; Australia: Energy giants face new tax bill; Brazil ethanol prices surge 65% in one month; Mother Earth to be given rights equal to humans; Study: Algae Could Replace 17% of U.S. Oil Imports; MN to pass law banning undercover farm videos; Studies begin to reveal effects of Gulf Oil Spill; Coal co. agrees to install pollution controls; Meet the Gulf 'Spillionaires' ... PLUS: Surprise!: Leaked talking points show oil companies don't give a frack about the truth....Links to STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT' at Green News Report! Visit BradBlog.com to see who counts yer votes! Reference yer background/research at Who's Counting? too.

• The Peter B. Collins Show PODCAST!
  
  Listen at PeterBCollins.com!
  The Peter B. Collins Show covers American news and politics from the Left Coast. Veteran talk radio personality Peter B. Collins, based in San Francisco, delivers fresh interviews, commentary and analysis on a range of important topics, with views and voices you don’t often find in the corporate media.
  • PBC Live! Weekly on KGO PBC Live! Weekly on KGO Your humble host has been remiss in keeping you apprised of his other media activities. Since February, I’ve been hosting a regular weekly show on KGO, the leading San Francisco talk station with a huge coverage area–at night, you can hear it anywhere on the West Coast. TFN (till further notice), you can hear me every Friday night–or, more precisely, Saturday morning, from 1-5 am (PDT) on 810-AM or streaming at www.kgoradio.com. If you’d like to be alerted each week, sign up on Facebook as a fan of “Peter B. Collins Show” or you can follow me on Twitter, @pbcsf
  • PBC Podcast 235 Journalist Porter Asks: Does Obama Want to Keep Troops in Iraq?? Tom Hayden on Libya and “Humanitarian Hawks” Journalist and historian Gareth Porter says Obama has signaled Iraq that we’ll keep thousands of troops there–IF Iraq asks us to stay! And Tom Hayden discusses his article in The Nation, identifying Samantha Power as a major influence on Libya.
  • PBC Podcast 236 Author/Radio Host Brian Kahn on “Real Common Sense”; Radio Host Jon Elliott Has Launched His Podcast! Montana public radio host Brian Kahn’s new book, Real Common Sense offers an incisive analysis of the radical right and how we can counter their moves; Jon Elliott, former Air America host, has launched his podcast!
  • PBC Podcast 237 Andy Worthington on Obama’s Capitulation on Gitmo and Trials; Robert Parry on Acquittal of Terrorist Posada Two great journalists: Andy Worthington, author of Guantanamo Files comments on Obama’s cave-in on trials of 9/11 suspects, offers new info on our prisons in Afghanistan, and compares Britain’s political struggles to our own; Robert Parry offers history and context on the recent trial of CIA asset and Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles.
  • PBC Podcast 238 Special Guest: Barack Obama PBC talks back to the President. In this podcast, you will hear a major portion of Obama’s speech on April 13 at George Washington University, interspersed with critical commentary. Will Durst comments on the budget battle.

• Ring of Fire Radio
  
  Find us at http://ringoffireradio.com and http://goleft.tv/ hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder
  Ring of Fire Radio - GoLeft TV - Robert F. Kennedy, Mike Papantonio, Sam Seder - Politics, Commentary, and News.
  This Week on Ring of Fire! April 14, 2010
  • Stepping into the Ring of Fire this week: Mark Mattson from the Lake Ontario Waterkeepers will be here to talk about the ongoing debate over whether nuclear energy will ever be safe enough for widespread use.
  • Attorney Peter Mougey will be here to tell us why there are still no federal regulations that require investment bankers to put the interests of their clients above their own financial interests.
  • Chris Hunt from Sustainable Table will be joining us to talk about the dangers of the bovine growth hormones that farms across the country are injecting into cattle.
  • We’ll be talking with attorney and consumer advocate Ed Blizzard about why the FDA allowed Johnson & Johnson to keep a faulty hip implant on the market for years, even when their own research showed that it was causing damage to patients.
  • You Can Listen to Ring of Fire on These Stations HERE.
  • VIDEO! Papantonio: Obama Caves to GOP on Budget Congress might have been able to prevent a complete government shutdown last week, but that won’t stop President Obama from giving the GOP everything that they want when it comes to the budget. He’s already discussing cuts to Medicare and Social Security, destroying a safety net that millions of Americans rely on. Mike Papantonio talks with Ed Schultz about why Obama always seems to cave to Republican pressure.
  • Join our blog at www.ringoffireradio.com. You can now SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST by clicking on the “Podcast” tab at the top of the Ring of Fire blog. Please help support progressive radio by signing up!
  Ring of Fire Radio Ring of Fire, hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder: Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern, rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm (4 pm on XM 167) featuring The PAP Attack! "We’ll bring you the stories that the mainstream media didn’t feel like reporting this week."

• Majority Report with Sam Seder Streaming LIVE weekdays 11:30 am et @ Majority.fm!
  
  • Live From Vegas Peter Mougey Talks Obama, Financial Regulation & More [04•14•11]
  • Slate Senior Editor Dahlia Lithwick on the Courts [04•12•11]
  • Digby of Hullabaloo on the Budget Deal [04•11•11]
  MORE Podcast Interviews at majorityreport.official.fm!

• On the Edge with Max Keiser Podcasts and more @ MaxKeiser.com!
  
  "HI Y'ALL! Tell the people! Tell the people!"
  WHO IS MAX KEISER? Max Keiser is a financial expert, Prediction Markets analyst, inventor and filmmaker. He is the creator of the Hollywood Stock Exchange (HSX) the first Prediction Market. Max Keiser co-hosts “The Truth About Markets” on ResonanceFM 104.4 in London. He also produces and presents documentary films covering markets and finance for Al Jazeera’s “People & Power” series. Max Keiser started his career on Wall Street in 1983. He is the creator of KarmaBanque a site that enables activists to challenge corporate power.
  • VISIT PirateMyFilm.com!!! Crowd Funding for Pirates!
  • Meanwhile, across the pond: “If you missed CNN’s In The Arena on Thursday evening, then you missed the fireworks. Eliot Spitzer challenged investment banker Goldman Sachs: “Sue me. You lied to the public. You should be prosecuted” READ Did Goldman Sachs Lie? Story and video at zerohedge.com
  • Silver Terrorist JP Morgan’s role in the Madoff scandal gets some lawsuits rolling READ Meet The JPMorgan Employees Named In Irving Picard’s Devastating Madoff Lawsuit By Jeff Berwick at BusinessInsider.comStory and video at zerohedge.com
  • “If you keep your money or savings in US dollars inside of the United States, you are a risk taker of epic proportions. Have you not been paying attention to what is going on? Read more: The War on Money” READ The War on Money By Jeff Berwick at DailyReckoning.com
  • Tide (of sewage) turning against JP Morgan in Alabama? READ MONTGOMERY, Alabama — A Jefferson County lawsuit may proceed against investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. and others over some of the county’s ruinous sewer system financing deals, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled today. at market-ticker.com
  • VIDEO! HUGE! Smart money is dumping SLV (paper silver) and buying REAL SILVER (crash jp morgan buy silver) This was said today; 15 April 2011 (1:59 min. long) Interviewed mad that took out his silver coins after paying storage fees since 2003. Sounded like the man was not amused with the ordeal! Priceless! $43.05 closing!!!!!! on a FRIDAY!!!!
  • VIDEO! Too bad UK residents are blocked from viewing this video directly from c4 PLEASE NOTE: This video is BLOCKED by Channel 4 to everyone in the UK, it is veiwable to everyone NOT in the UK.
  • VIDEO! Cenk Uygur, Matt Taibbi, Why isn’t Wall Street in jail?
  • KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: Banking XXX Interview with Jim Rickards
  • KEISER REPORT [KR138] Keiser Report – For a Few Billion Dollars More We talk to Cory Doctorow.
  • THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [1197] The Truth About Markets – 16 April 2011 Download mp3 HERE Donations to ResonanceFM here.
  • ON THE EDGE [OTE105] On the Edge with Jerry Robinson We interview Jerry Robinson of FTMDaily.com

• ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
  LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
  Listen at antiwar.com/radio
  • Johann Hari April 13, 2011: Johann Hari, columnist for the London Independent, discusses his article We’re not being told the truth on Libya; the weapons deals with Mideast dictators pushed by David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama right up through the “Arab Spring;” the US drone attacks in Pakistan that have killed thousands of civilians, yet failed to elicit calls for a protective no-fly zone like Libya’s; the brutal war in Congo, propelled by western corporations extracting rare earth minerals, that could be stopped without dropping a single bomb; and the deal that sent convicted (rightly or not) Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi back to Libya in exchange for BP’s access to Libyan oil.
  • Ali GharibApril 15, 2011: Ali Gharib, New York-based journalist on U.S. foreign policy and LobeLog writer, discusses the neocon effort to keep war with Iran on the front burner, while the news cycle overwhelms their tired talking points; the old propaganda line that Iranians want us to bomb them, to give them a chance for regime change; the WikiLeaks documents that show Israel’s threats to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites (if the US doesn’t) are just hot air; and how observing the fates of N. Korea and Libya could lead Iran to conclude the best defensive strategy is building nuclear weapons and ceasing negotiations with the West.
  • Pepe Escobar April 15, 2011: Pepe Escobar, Asia Times columnist and author of the article If the US Doesn’t Pull Every Soldier from Iraq by Midnight, Dec. 31, 2011, Expect Serious Trouble discusses the endgame in Iraq, where the US can either acquiesce to the people’s will, or restart the war all over again; how a stable post-occupation Iraq depends on Saudi Arabia not funding/arming another Sunni insurgency; the proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia playing out in the Gulf states; a little lesson on politics and the potential for reform in Algeria and Morocco; how successful democratic transitions in Tunisia and Egypt will encourage reformers in other autocratic ME/NA countries; and the EU divide between neocolonialist France and non-interventionist Germany.
  • Matt Southworth April 16, 2011: Matt Southworth, Campaigns Program Assistant at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), discusses his transition from Army soldier to peace activist; the work done by the diverse membership of the Friends Committee (they aren’t necessarily Quakers); the Congressional Research Service’s report “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11;” how a diversion of war funds for one year could pay off all US state deficits; why it’s hard to calculate the level of Pentagon fraud and waste, while they remain exempt from financial audit; the increased number of generals and high-ranking officers compared to levels during WWII; and why economies based on war are unsustainable and will eventually collapse.
  Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio!

• fauxnews
  • Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation
  • Sen. Tom Coburn, (R) Oklahoma
  • Rep. Chris Van Hollen, (D) Maryland / Ranking Member, Budget Committee

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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