Filthy Rich Stuff: June 2011

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Brick TeeVee Another Mixed Bag Sunday!

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Another Mixed Bag So President Not Sure gave a big speech about a troop withdrawal, everyone is going crazy about the deficit while even if ALL the troops in Afghanistan left it would only account for a small amount of the deficit. NPR's Scott Horsley puts it this way: "If we're bringing home 10,000 troops this year, that means you'll be spending $10 billion less next year. Another $23 billion in savings when you bring the balance of the surge troop home. But that still leaves 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, so we're still going to be spending a considerable sum in that country. That said, the war costs are about 17 percent of the defense budget. So you could end this war tomorrow, and it would not go very far towards balancing the budget." Uh, what about the other 83%, Scott? Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews.com explains the long sordid history of Bob Gates’s ‘Business’ of Lying as Defense Secretary Robert Gates finally retires. In 1991, Gates’s nomination stood at a crossroads of several intersecting scandals including:

–The Iran-Contra investigation led by special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, who had just penetrated a long-running White House cover-up of the secret arms deals from 1985-86 and who had revealed the hidden role of the CIA where Gates had lurked in the background as the agency’s deputy director.

–The October Surprise case, an Iran-Contra prequel of secret dealings with Iran dating back to the 1980 presidential campaign, an inquiry which finally had reached a critical mass of congressional interest amid belated mainstream press attention (with Gates and Bush linked to those allegations as well).

–Iraq-gate, suspicions that President Ronald Reagan and then-Vice President George H.W. Bush had covertly aided and armed Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, which represented an embarrassment given the just-completed Persian Gulf War against Hussein (with Gates again implicated in those secret dealings on behalf of Reagan and Bush).

–Politicization of U.S. intelligence, a behind-the-scenes dispute at the CIA which was brought into the daylight by veteran CIA analysts who accused Gates of waging bureaucratic war on their independent judgment and giving the Reagan administration pre-cooked conclusions to support desired policies.

Indeed, the media Zeitgeist of 1991 was a preview of the behavior of Washington journalists a dozen years later when they fell in line behind President George W. Bush’s progression toward war with Iraq and marched in lock step behind his false claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In both cases, in 1991 and 2003, staying obedient was the smart career play. In 1991, part of the media’s role in running interference for Gates involved rejecting the testimony of witnesses who implicated Gates in various scandals starting with the alleged back-channel negotiations with Iran in 1980, through the arming of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the mid-1980s, to the Iran-Contra scandal which broke open in late 1986. ... Despite this checkered record for wisdom and truth-telling, Gates today is renowned across Washington as a modern “wise man.” In 2009, Washington Post columnist David Broder, the late “dean of the Washington press corps,” hailed Gates as “incapable of dissembling.” Speaking of the Beltway Bubalas and their "Conventional Wisdom" Salon's Glenn Greenwald explains the Climate of Fear: Jim Risen v. the Obama administration The Obama DOJ's effort to force New York Times investigative journalist Jim Risen to testify in a whistleblower prosecution and reveal his source is really remarkable and revealing in several ways; it should be receiving much more attention than it is. On its own, the whistleblower prosecution and accompanying targeting of Risen are pernicious, but more importantly, it underscores the menacing attempt by the Obama administration -- as Risen yesterday pointed out -- to threaten and intimidate whistleblowers, journalists and activists who meaningfully challenge what the government does in secret. ... And here's how he summarized the multiple revelations in State of War, the book for which the Obama DOJ is now seeking to force him to reveal his source upon pain of imprisonment:

State of War

(To understand the function of the American media and American political culture: please re-read that paragraph -- describing revelations of pervasive lawbreaking and corruption at the highest levels of government from one reporter in one book -- and compare the media's indifferent and/or supportive treatment of that revealed conduct to the orgy of intense, obsessive condemnation directed at Anthony Weiner; or compare how the perpetrators of that conduct revealed by Risen are treated with great respect to the universal scorn heaped on Weiner). Particularly because of the NSA revelation, Risen was despised by Bush officials and was the target of a right-wing hate campaign (including suggestions -- from administration officials and prominent others -- that he be prosecuted for espionage). Risen compiles ample evidence in his Affidavit to argue that the Subpoena issued to him in the Sterling case was a by-product of the administration's efforts to harm him; he writes: "the administration was embarrassed by the disclosures I made in the course of my reporting for State of War as well as in The New York Times, and eventually singled me out as a target for political harassment." Indeed, Risen argues -- persuasively -- that the investigation to unmask his source, and the prosecution of Sterling itself, is little more than a means of punishing him for his reporting and for intimidating similar disclosures in the future... Huh. In other words, OBAMA JUSTICE DEPT. TO BUBALAS: Stick to stenography or you'll be next! Hang in there Jim Risen! Get his book too State of War: The Secret History of the C.I.A. and the Bush Administration. Dean Baker at Truthout.org stares down the GOP and tries to make them blink in The Endgame on the Debt Ceiling As it stands now, we are being told that the Republicans are insisting that there will be no increase in the debt ceiling without large cuts to the budget. Since the Republicans won't go along with any major cuts to the military budget, this means big cuts to the rest of the budget. These cuts would have to include cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and possibly Social Security as well, since everything else in the non-military portion of the budget does not amount to much. According to this story, President Obama might be forced to make major cuts to the core social insurance programs in order to prevent the disaster of a debt default that would result from not raising the debt ceiling. However the actual picture is a bit different. There is no doubt that the failure to raise the debt ceiling would be very bad news for the economy. If the government had to default on its debt, it would shake the financial markets even more than the collapse of Lehman in September of 2008. We would see a freeze-up of lending and companies would be forced to dump millions of workers, as they could no longer meet their payrolls. ... While the country will still be left standing following a debt default, there is one important sector that will not be standing: Wall Street. A debt default would almost certainly make all the major banks insolvent as they would have to mark down the value of US government debt, which had been held as a completely safe asset. The loss of value would also apply to all the assets backed by the government, such as the mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Even when the economy revived, the US financial sector would never hold the same place in the world as it does today. Without the ironclad financial backing of the US government standing behind them, the Wall Street gang could never again be the dominant actor in international financial markets. This fact is essential in understanding the endgame on the debt ceiling. ... The gun is pointed most directly at Wall Street's head, and this incredibly powerful lobby is not going to let Congress pull the trigger. This means that at the end of the day, President Obama holds the cards. He could say that he wants a clean debt ceiling bill and no deals on cutting back the country's key social insurance programs. Of course, that may not be President Obama's agenda. Ya think, Dean? Wasn't it President Not Sure who convened the Cat Food Commission in the first place? "Obama nor Congress wants to get caught cutting Social Security and Medicare in public...So instead, they are foisting off this unpleasant task onto the Deficit Commission, showing what the lawyers call "due diligence," sucking their thumbs and pretending to study how to cut the deficit" explained MoJo's James Ridgeway last August. Once a neo-lib, always a neo-lib, eh? WaPo's E.J. Dionne gets in on the Voter-Fraud-BS story How states are rigging the 2012 election calling it what is: "Are we now going to witness a subtle return of Jim Crow voting laws?" while Ryan J. Reilly over at TPMMuckraker blows a giant hole in the "Voter-Fraud" ship Election Expert Can't Find Report On 1984 Voter Impersonation Case Cited By von Spakovsky A prominent law professor who writes about election law wants to know where former Bush administration official Hans von Spakovsky got a copy of a 1984 grand jury report that he used in an article about the threat of voter impersonation fraud. In a 2008 report for the Heritage Foundation titled "Stolen Identities, Stolen Votes: A Case Study In Voter Impersonation" and in a companion Fox News op-ed, von Spakovsky used the grand jury document to cite cases "well within living memory" that took place between 1968 and 1982. Rick Hasen, a law professor at UC Irvine who writes at Election Law Blog, is working on a book about the voting wars since 2000. He's trying to examine the evidence of voter impersonation fraud, but is having trouble finding the original report. ... Hasen said there is very little available about what happened in Brooklyn absent two New York Times articles written on the case. He wrote emails to von Spakovsky and later the president of the Heritage Foundation to request the supporting documents. He also pinged a listserv of 850 election law professors, lawyers and historians to see if they knew of a copy. No such luck. "There may not be another copy. I don't know how he got it. So I'd like to see it," Hasen said. ...There was no response to an email TPM sent to von Spakovsky on Monday. HA! We go to BradBlog for The 'Judicial Insider Trading' of Justice Clarence Thomas and Wife 'Ginni' Brad interviews watchdog attorney Kevin Zeese on KPFK... He had inappropriate sexual entanglements with a number of women and lied about it repeatedly to the American people. Yet nobody --- save for one Colorado law school prof --- seems to be calling for Justice Clarence Thomas' resignation for some reason. That, even though Thomas, unlike Rep. Anthony Weiner, appears to have actually, and flagrantly, and repeatedly, broken the law.... While there has been little indication that law enforcement is actually investigating the crimes of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice (which, as we pointed out in January, are punishable by up to $50,000 and/or 1 year in jail for each instance of falsification), last Friday when Thomas' Financial Disclosure Form for 2010 [PDF] was released, the matter appears to have gotten shadier still, leading at least one government watchdog organization to describe what Thomas and his wife Virginia "Ginni" Thomas may be been doing as "Judicial Insider Trading." ... Not to be outdone, Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress digs up Clarence Thomas Decided Three Cases Where AEI Filed a Brief After AEI Gave Him a $15,000 Gift In 2001, a conservative, corporate-aligned think tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) gave Justice Clarence Thomas the gift of a $15,000 bust of Abraham Lincoln. At the ceremony presenting Thomas with this very expensive gift, AEI president Christopher DeMuth explained that the bust was “cast in 1914 by the great neo-classical sculptor Adolph Alexander Weinman.” [video] AEI, however, is not simply in the business of giving luxurious gifts to Supreme Court justices — it is also in the business of litigating before the United States Supreme Court. ThinkProgress uncovered three briefs that AEI filed in Thomas’ Court after Thomas received their $15,000 gift. Thomas recused from none of these three cases, and he either voted in favor of the result AEI favored or took a stance that was even further to the right in each case...Although there is no evidence that AEI gave Thomas the $15,000 gift specifically to buy his vote in a particular case, Thomas’ decision to sit on cases where his benefactor has a demonstrated interest creates a very serious appearance of impropriety. No one would trust a judge to hear their case if they learned that someone on the other side of the case had given that judge a rare and expensive gift. Meanwhile Athens News pegs this headline from Reuters Government survives vote; protesters chant insults The assembly voted confidence in the government, reshuffled by Prime Minister George Papandreou to stiffen resolve behind a painful new austerity programme, by 155 votes to 143 with two abstentions. All Papandreou's Socialist Party deputies voted solidly with the government. ... Protesters besieged parliament in Syntagma square, chanting slogans against the politicians, shining hundreds of green laser lights at the building and into the eyes of riot police outside and pushing their hands forward in a traditional insult. ... As parliament debated the confidence motion, demonstrators stepped up their protests in the square, where hundreds have camped for weeks to show their opposition to more austerity, which has deepened the worst recession for 37 years. "I believe we should go bankrupt and get it over with. These measures are slowly killing us," said 22-year-old student Efi Koloverou. "We want competent people to take over." ... Inside parliament the opposition poured similar disdain on the government. "This is not a programme to salvage the economy, it's a programme for pillage before bankruptcy," said Alexis Tsipras, head of the small opposition Left Coalition. George Washington at zerohedge picks up on this quote explaining It's not just Greece. As PhD economist Michael Hudson said in 2009:

The giant financial institutions have already killed their host - the real American economy
Since they realize that the American economy is dead, they are trying to suck as much blood out of America as possible while the corpse is still warm
Because the American economy is dead, their plan is to soon jump to another host. They will ship all of their money overseas.

And see It's Not the "Great Recession". It's the Great BANK ROBBERY and America Is Being Raped ... Just Like Greece and Other Countries. Do read these in-depth articles with even more articles linked to within! Great job GW! From our enviro-desk we go to

EnergyNews (enenews.com) who snagged physicist Michio Kaku on CNN “They lied to us”: Radiation release comparable to Chernobyl — Total core meltdown in all 3 reactors — Worst industrial catastrophe in world history (CNN VIDEO)
PRWatch.org What Happened to Media Coverage of Fukushima? by Anne Landman Poor mainstream media coverage of Japan's now months-long struggle to gain control over the Fukushima disaster has deprived Americans of crucial information about the risks of nuclear power following natural disasters. ... while other countries, like Germany and Italy, have taken serious steps to address the obvious risks of nuclear power -- risks that the Fukushima disaster made painfully evident, at least to the rest of the world. ... News outlets in other countries have been paying attention to Fukushima, though, and a relative few in this country have as well. A June 16, 2011 Al Jazeera English article titled, "Fukushima: It's much worse than you think," quotes a high-level former nuclear industry executive, Arnold Gunderson, who called Fukushima nohting less than "the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind." Twenty nuclear cores have been exposed at Fukushima, Gunderson points out, saying that, along with the site's many spent-fuel pools, gives Fukushima 20 times the release potential of Chernobyl. Efforts to bring problems at Fukushima under control are not going well, either. Japanese authorities only just recently admitted that nuclear fuel in the three damaged Fukushima reactors has likely burned through the vessels holding it, a scenario called "melt-through", that is even more serious than a core meltdown. Months of spraying seawater on the plant's three melted-down fuel cores -- and the spent fuel stored on site -- to try and cool them has produced 26 million of gallons of radioactive wastewater, and no place to put it. After a struggle, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), finally managed to put in place a system to filter radioactive particles out of the wastewater, but it broke down soon after it started operating. A filter that was supposed to last a month plugged up with radioactive material after just five hours, indicating there is more radioactive material in the water than previously believed. Much more at link...
WSWS.org Report reveals majority of US nuclear plants are leaking radioactivity By James Brewer: "Weeks of flooding in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri have threatened two nuclear plants in eastern Nebraska. Both have issued “unusual event” alerts (the lowest of four emergency levels) to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ... On Tuesday, the Associated Press issued a scathing study on tritium leaks from US nuclear plants. In its year-long investigation, AP found that of the 65 nuclear power sites in the US, at least 48 of them are leaking water containing tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen. The report states, “The number and severity of the leaks has been escalating, even as federal regulators extend the licenses of more and more reactors across the nation.” ...
Mother Jones Sea Levels Rising at Fastest Rate in 2000 Years By Samantha Oltman: "The science behind a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal is complicated, but the evidence is more precise than it has ever been: Sea levels are now rising at a faster rate than they were at any time in the past 2,000 years. For much of the two millenia measured in the study, sea levels were either stabilized or rising at .25 millimeters per year. But right around the end of the 19th century, sea levels started rising at a comparatively drastic 2.1 millimeters per year, and the trend has continued today. The study marks a huge advancement in the science of measuring sea level changes because for the first time, scientists have recorded a precise and continuous record of sea level changes dating back over two millenia. This record, which the study based on salt marsh microfossil records from North Carolina's coast, shows that sea level changes for the past millenium have correspended to global temperatures. When the world started warming up, sea levels rose. When it cooled, they stabilized...."
McClatchy DC (via Lexington Herald-Leader) Study: spike in birth defects near mountaintop mining By John Cheves: "Birth defects are more likely to occur in Appalachian counties with mountaintop removal coal mining — including Eastern Kentucky — than in other counties in the region, according to a new study. The study, published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research, suggests that birth defects could result from air and water pollution created by mountaintop removal, including mercury, lead and arsenic, which have been shown to pose risks to fetal development. The study stops short of blaming mountaintop removal for birth defects. But its authors said they tried to account for other possible causes, such as higher rates of smoking, less education and poorer prenatal care among expectant mothers in mining counties. The common factor seemed to be proximity to the blasting of mountains to remove coal, they said...." Listen to Bob Kincaid's Thursday show for more details.
Guardian.co.uk 'Shocking' state of seas threatens mass extinction, say marine experts
Read even more at the Green News Report below.

We leave the last word to Chris Hedges who interviews Tim DeChristopher in This Hero Didn't Stand A Chance: He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine for fraudulently bidding in December 2008 on parcels of land, including areas around eastern Utah’s national parks, which were being sold off by the Bush administration to the oil and natural gas industry. As Bidder No. 70, he drove up the prices of some of the bids and won more than a dozen other parcels for $1.8 million. The government is asking Judge Benson to send DeChristopher to prison for four and a half years. His prosecution is evidence that our moral order has been turned upside down. Sorry about our minimalist posting last week as the Brick TeeVee Crew had a birthday bash in the compound and couldn't find their computers after quite a few adult beverages! The Tribe is on a West Coast swing so the Crew has been staying up late to watch the excitement. And the garden is doing well with no critter invasions so far. 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.
»»» Filmmaker Marshall Curry, animal rights activist Andrew Stepanian & freelance reporter Will Potter @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW “If a Tree Falls”: New Documentary on Daniel McGowan, Earth Liberation Front and Green Scare June 22, 2011
»»» Author Liza Featherstone @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW 1.5 Million Female Wal-Mart Employees Lose Historic Sex Discrimination Case Before Supreme Court June 22, 2011
»»» Juan Cole @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Obama’s Afghan War Military Drawdown to Leave U.S. Occupation at Pre-Surge Levels June 23, 2011
»»» Former CIA Agent Glenn Carle @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Former CIA Agent Glenn Carle Reveals Bush Admin Effort to Smear War Critic Juan Cole REALTED: Former CIA Agent Glenn Carle Draws Agency Censorship with Chronicle of "War on Terror" Interrogation June 23, 2011
»»» Gareth Porter @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Obama Plan for Afghan War Withdrawal Will Leave Troop Size at Pre-Surge Levels June 24, 2011
»»» Kitty Piercy, mayor of Eugene, Oregon @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Citing Domestic Economic Crisis, U.S. Mayors Back Resolution to Redirect War Funds Home June 24, 2011
»»» Detroit resident, Edith Lee-Payne and John Philo, legal director of the Maurice & Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Michigan Residents File Lawsuit Challenging Emergency Law Installing Unelected City Managers June 24, 2011
»»» Haiti correspondent Dan Coughlin and Haïti Liberté editor, Kim Ives @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Haiti: Leaked Cables Expose U.S. Suppression of Min. Wage, Election Doubts and Elite’s Private Army June 25, 2011
»»» AP investigative journalist Jeff Donn @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW New Exposé Reveals Nuclear Regulatory Commission Colluded with Industry to Weaken Safety Standards June 25, 2011
GRITtv

»»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» FEATURED SHOW America's Not Broke but our Healthcare System is
»»» Bill Moyers Bill Moyers: Reclaiming Our Media Power
»»» Columbia University professor Dorian Warren Dorian Warren: The 'Walmart Way'
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!_©
»»» NASCAR on TNT It's the Toyota/Save Mart 350 from Infineon Raceway in Sonoma! Coverage begins at TNT at 3 pm et
»»» MLB on TBS Interleague Play! Rockies @ Yankees! 2 pm et
»»» Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN INDIANS @ Giants 8 pm et GO TRIBE!
»»» Monday Night Baseball on ESPN Reds @ Rays 7 pm et
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!_©
ACCESS NOW At BTV we're all about Net Neutrality but apparently the G8 is not. G8: Protect the Net by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: For the first time, the leaders of the G8 developed countries are going to discuss internet policy. Instead of promoting net neutrality and user privacy and combating online censorship, the French government has locked civil society out of these conversations, while inviting CEOs -- some of whom paid $100,000 for their seat at the table -- who are pushing policies like strict intellectual property enforcement, which will line corporate pockets while curtailing our digital rights. Unless we speak out now, decisions about internet policy are going to be made at the highest levels without our voices represented. Please sign this urgent petition calling on the G8 to adopt citizen-centered internet policies, which we’ll deliver at a press conference to the world media on Monday in Paris. Much more at www.accessnow.org
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. Today the Campaign for America’s Future is sending letters to all the major media demanding that the views of the American Majority be represented in the news programs, print articles and opinion pages, and in the non-stop daily and Sunday talk shows in which the debate about America’s future is being conducted as we move toward the showdown over the budget. We are demanding representation in the media proportional to the size of the American Majority. And we are making the point that the views of the majority are not irrational—and that in a democracy the majority deserves to be heard, not patronized. We are also supplying the media with an extensive list of economists, experts and advocates who share the majority view that deficits are not now the major threat to U.S. prosperity, and that getting revenue back into the budget is far less damaging (and more just) than cutting spending and crippling important programs for the poor and the elderly. And we are telling them that occasionally featuring the great Paul Krugman, as though his views represent a lonely majority, is not enough. ... The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
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 UPDATE! War Against War: A Meditation on Bradley Manning’s Mind By Scott Tucker “Bradley Manning’s Mind.” I took a deep breath when I read that title over this brief item recently posted on Truthdig ... Without our defense, a prisoner such as Bradley Manning is defenseless against the media, the military and the government. We can at least spread the word about the Bradley Manning Support Network. There has already been online discussion among gay folks and the queer left about the “Frontline” show that pathologized Manning, and now The Guardian video report features a soldier with blurred face saying Manning pissed in his pants and curled up on his bunk “in a fetal position.” Maybe he did, after being repeatedly insulted and assaulted by fellow soldiers, by the account of this same anonymous informant. ... If Manning’s mind was fractured, then (as the paradox is known in the Latin liturgy), felix culpa! If guilty as charged, then Manning is one of the people who helped fracture the state secrets of an anti-democratic bipartisan regime that keeps racking up and tracking down ever more political “suspects”—even while career politicians carry out imperial wars with ever more expensive high-tech weapons. The “intelligence” that Manning is charged with passing to WikiLeaks turned out to be one of the inspirations for the Arab rebellions across the Middle East and North Africa; and there has been a real earthquake in the fields of mass media and journalism, with aftershocks following almost weekly. If the traditional guardians of the daily news so deeply resent Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks, that is because they long ago traded away integrity and independence in the sly scramble for “access” to power, press conferences and photo opportunities. Show me a human being without fractures and I’ll show you a robot. Much more at link.
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!
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

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The essential guide for watching government propaganda
IRAQ: 4,463 US Military Dead as of June 24, 2011
AFGHANISTAN: 1,637 US Military Dead as of June 24, 2011
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative

This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour
• 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'
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
• House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn, D-S.C.
• ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)
• ROUNDTABLE: George Will, former White House communications director Anita Dunn, Thomson Reuters' Chrystia Freeland and ABC's senior political correspondent Jonathan Karl.
• ROUNDTABLE II: George Will joins ABC News' senior foreign affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz and professor of international politics at Tufts University Vali Nasr.
Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
• Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
60 Minutes (CBS)
• Hard Times Generation - For some children, socializing and learning in school are being cruelly complicated by homelessness, as Scott Pelley reports from Florida, where school buses now stop at budget motels for children who've lost their homes. Robert Anderson, Daniel Ruetenik and Nicole Young are the producers.
• Wynton Marsalis - Jazz missionary Wynton Marsalis shares his love of America's most distinctive art form by taking his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra around the world. Morley Safer tags along as Marsalis and his musicians make the scene in London and then go to Havana for a spicy Afro-Cuban musical treat. David Browning and Diane Beasley are the producers. (This is a double-length segment.)
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!
• Chris Christie (R-NJ)
• Armed Services Committee members Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI)
• Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA).
• ROUNDTABLE: BBC’s Katty Kay, The NYT’s Matt Bai and David Brooks
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.
• Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
• Sen. Jim DeMint
• Bill Burton, former deputy press secretary for President Obama
• Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush
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!!!!!! Bob talks about his most excellent adventure to Minnesota and Netroots Nation! The feature film was The Last Mountain! Listen HERE (mp3)! This week Bob will be talking real American History at the PRISM-WV Summer Academy starting Tuesday! Catch the video stream Tue-Fri beginning at 9 am each day on the Head-On With Bob Kincaid USTREAM Channel!
Amen to the White Rose Society! Donate to Head On HERE!
YOUR 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' - June 23rd, 2011 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Summer of Floods, Summer of Fires: today's unlucky town is Minot, ND; Bad news for US nukes; Sea level rise accelerating; PLUS: Al Gore slams Obama on climate change, Fox "News" gets all confused ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): Can nuclear waste storage co-exist with nearby oil & gas drilling?; Drilling co. sells kids on fracking with new coloring book; Google hits $780M in total clean energy investing; Seafood processors accused of violations; Conservative group sues NASA for climate scientist's records; How livable streets make us happier humans; Answers from the E. coli outbreak in Germany; Are architects the change agents for the new Green Economy?; GOP House votes to weaken Clean Air permits for oil-drillers; Transocean blames BP for Gulf Oil Spill Disaster; Canada opposes labeling Asbestos as hazardous; DoD plans large-scale integration of electric vehicles; Civil Disobedience in DC this summer to stop the Keystone XL tar sands p pipeline; Congress: Let's just rename it the "Dirty Water Act" ... PLUS: Which cities can best adapt to climate change? (Congrats, Cleveland!) ... 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.
BRADCAST UPDATE! Brad hosted the Mike Malloy Show so listen here!
.....more at BradBlog.com.
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 264 ‘Iron Man’ Reveals Pre-9/11 Intel, Coverup; Details on FBI Raids on American Peace Dr. Jeffrey Kaye of Truthout on the revelations of “Iron Man”, a former military intelligence official who knew that al Qaeda was planning attacks on the twin towers and Pentagon; Chicago lawyer Michael Deutsch details the September, 2010 raid on 23 peace activists and compares it to COINTELPRO
• PBC Podcast 266 Area 51 Special: Author Annie Jacobsen plus Interloper Jack Boulware L. A. Times investigative reporter Annie Jacobsen on her new book about Area 51; plus writer Jack Boulware talks about his longtime coverage of UFologists and his visit to Area 51 20 years ago.
• PBC Podcast 267 Dahr Jamail Reports: Fukushima Much Worse than Reported; Will Durst on GOP Presidential Candidate Debate Dahr Jamail, now reporting for AlJazeera, talks about his recent article on Fukushima’s meltdowns, 20 times worse than Chernobyl; Will Durst on the GOP presidential field, such as it is.
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! June 25th, 2010
• This week on Ring of Fire: Senator Al Franken will be joining us to discuss his role in the United States Senate.
• Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, will be here to talk about the dysfunctional state of American politics, and what progressives can do to help fix our broken Congress.
• Jared Bernstein, former chief economist and economic adviser to vice president Joe Biden, will tell us how the Obama Administration’s economic policies have prevented our economy from taking another nose dive.
• Radio host Shannyn Moore will be joining me to talk about the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska that is threatening to destroy vital habitats for Alaskan salmon.
• And author Justin Krebs will be joining us to talk about how we can use our liberal values in ways that go far beyond voting and campaigning.
• VIDEO! Papantonio: Conservatives Turn Colleges Into Ayn Rand UniversitiesA few weeks ago, the story broke about how the Koch Brothers had bought themselves a position of influence at Florida State University. But the story goes far beyond both FSU and the Koch Brothers. It turns out that right wing billionaires and think tanks have been actively buying positions at universities across America for years, just so they can help push their Ayn Rand, laissez-faire capitalism ideas about corporations being righteous, and government being evil. Mike Papantonio talks about how this happened, and how the GOP is trying to indoctrinate college students with investigative journalist Daniel Denvir.
• VIDEO! RFK, Jr.: How The Middle Class Disappeared There was a time in American history when the wealthiest Americans did their part to support our government and our country by simply paying taxes. Today however, they pay almost nothing in taxes, and they are the ones who are actually lending money to our federal government. As a result, they now own as much as 40% of our country’s national debt. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. talks about how this happened, and why nobody noticed, with Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under president Bill Clinton, and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
• VIDEO! Papantonio: How Capitalism Has Failed Us Protesters in Wisconsin have taken to the streets to protest Republican Governor Scott Walker and his disastrous plan for their state. These protesters have been at it since February of this year. But in other areas of the country, Republicans are working to strip us of our rights, but the streets are empty. We don’t have protesters shining a spotlight on the corruption in other parts of the country, and because of this, the abuse just keeps coming. That’s why my next guest is so inspiring – Justin Jones is only 17, and yet he is more politically active than most people in this country, and we were pleased to have him back on Ring of Fire with us recently.
• 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!

• Dahlia Lithwick on the Wal-Mart Class Action Lawsuit, Clarence Thomas ethics + more!
• Sam Seder vents his frustration with Obama regarding solar panels for the White House [06•21•11]
• Matt Taibbi on Michele Bachmann and the Right Shifting on War [06•23•11]
• Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights on Michigan Emergency Manager Law [06•23•11]
• El Senator Furiouso by the Screaming Majority [06•24•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!
• VIDEO! The Official Silver Liberation Army! See SilverLiberationArmy.com !
• VIDEO! Jamie Dimon Pulls a Breitbart – Hijacks a Weiner’s Press Conference, Cries Like a Baby & Demands More Love! Stacy Summary: I’m 100% certain this guy is going to try to interrupt the recording of the next episode of the Keiser Report to ask whether the SLA can back down.
• Britain’s decline was extremely rapid after 1914 . . . America next? Read Decline and fall of the American empire at guardian.co.uk “The experience of both Rome and Britain suggests that it is hard to stop the rot once it has set in, so here are the a few of the warning signs of trouble ahead: military overstretch, a widening gulf between rich and poor, a hollowed-out economy, citizens using debt to live beyond their means, and once-effective policies no longer working. The high levels of violent crime, epidemic of obesity, addiction to pornography and excessive use of energy may be telling us something: the US is in an advanced state of cultural decadence.”
• What Keiser sees is the same thing that I see and everyone else who truly understands collapse sees… Read BLAME THE PEASANTS at collapsenet.com
• KEISER REPORT Keiser Report – ‘U.S. Going Down Next After Greece’
• KEISER REPORT [RT155] Keiser Report: Economic Melt-Through
• KEISER REPORT [KR156] Keiser Report: Army of New Mubaraks We interview Saifedean Ammous
• KEISER REPORT [KR157] Keiser Report – Financial No-Go Zone We interview Demetri Kofinas
• KEISER REPORT [KR158] Keiser Report – The Greek Resistance & An Increase Wages Special We interview Steve Keen of DebtDeflation.com
• KEISER REPORT Keiser Report: “Sandeep Jaitly, what is the Austrian School?”
• THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TaM1205] The Truth About Markets – 25 June 2011 Stacy Summary: We talk about the IEA oil dump, endlessely washing one’s hair, wages, uvulas, silver and money supply. Download mp3 HERE Donations to ResonanceFM here.
• ON THE EDGE On the Edge with Gerald Celente
ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
Listen at antiwar.com/radio
• John Lindsay-Poland June 6, 2011: John Lindsay-Poland, research and advocacy director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, discusses his article “Pentagon Using Drug Wars as Excuse to Build Bases in Latin America” how using the military to fight the war on drugs only succeeds in increasing the level of violence; the range of options between current drug policy and outright legalization; how the drug crackdown has guaranteed the most ruthless individuals rise to the top of the black market; and the chorus of voices from the Mexican peace movement and victims of drug violence, speaking out against the military response to drug trafficking.
• Eric Margolis June 23, 2011: Eric Margolis, foreign correspondent and author of War at the Top of the World and American Raj, discusses the Assad regime’s deep entrenchment throughout Syrian society (good luck overthrowing it), the foreign governments behind some opposition groups, Israeli strategy: stir up trouble in multi-factioned Arab states and let infighting leave them as the last strong state standing; US intervention in Libya: humanitarian effort or Arab spring counterrevolution and why Iraq’s government will indeed invite the US to stay past year’s end.
• Gareth Porter June 23, 2011: Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses his article “90% of Petraeus’s Captured ‘Taliban’ Were Civilians,” fact checking Afghan War statistics to prove US claimed gains were illusory; the maze of US, JSOC, NATO jails and prisons, Petraeus’s effective PR blitz in late 2010 that pushed back withdrawal to 2014 and beyond and the expectation for a summer drawdown.
• William J. Astore June 25, 2011: William Astore, professor of history at the Pennsylvania College of Technology, discusses his TomDispatch piece “American Militarism is Not a Fairy Tale,” how civilian control of the military is falling out of favor, especially among Republican chickenhawks, military budget cuts off the table through 2012, thanks to Democrats afraid of being labeled “soft” on anything, the blurred line between civilian (CIA) and military operations, how Gen. Petraeus made his own foreign policy by making a media case for an Afghan surge in 2009 (which would have got him fired in another era) and how Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy gives Americans a real choice between republic and empire – for the first time in a century.
• Mike German June 25, 2011: Michael German, Policy Counsel for the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office and former FBI Special Agent, discusses new and expanded FBI powers granted through lax Attorney General guidelines, that allow them to investigate any American for any (or no) reason without opening an official case and creating a paper trail, how we lost the protections put in place after Hoover era abuses and are back to persecuting groups based on their political beliefs and why giving law enforcement extra authority leads to more abuses, not more effective policing.
Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio!
fauxnews
• Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn
• Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Brick TeeVee Fathers Day Special!

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Fathers Day at Brick TeeVee!! Here's what we have so far. Why the Pentagon Papers matter now While we go on waging unwinnable wars on false premises, the Pentagon papers tell us we must not wait 40 years for the truth (see guardian.co.uk link for embedded links) The declassification and online release Monday of the full original version of the Pentagon Papers – the 7,000-page top secret Pentagon study of US decision-making in Vietnam 1945-67 – comes 40 years after I gave it to 19 newspapers and to Senator Mike Gravel (minus volumes on negotiations, which I had given only to the Senate foreign relations committee). Gravel entered what I had given him in the congressional record and later published nearly all of it with Beacon Press. Together with the newspaper coverage and a government printing office (GPO) edition that was heavily redacted but overlapped the Senator Gravel edition, most of the material has been available to the public and scholars since 1971. (The negotiation volumes were declassified some years ago; the Senate, if not the Pentagon, should have released them no later than the end of the war in 1975.) In other words, today's declassification of the whole study comes 36 to 40 years overdue. Yet, unfortunately, it happens to be peculiarly timely that this study gets attention and goes online just now. That's because we're mired again in wars – especially in Afghanistan – remarkably similar to the 30-year conflict in Vietnam, and we don't have comparable documentation and insider analysis to enlighten us on how we got here and where it's likely to go. ... To motivate voters and Congress to extricate us from these presidential wars, we need the Pentagon Papers of the Middle East wars right now. Not 40 years in the future. Not after even two or three more years of further commitment to stalemated and unjustifiable wars. Yet, we're not likely to get these ever within the time frame they're needed. The WikiLeaks' unauthorised disclosures of the last year are the first in 40 years to approach the scale of the Pentagon Papers (and even surpass them in quantity and timeliness). But unfortunately, the courageous source of these secret, field-level reports – Private Bradley Manning is the one accused, though that remains to be proven in court – did not have access to top secret, high-level recommendations, estimates and decisions. Very, very few of those who do have such access are willing to risk their clearances and careers – and the growing possibility (under President Obama) of prosecution – by documenting to Congress and the public even policies that they personally believe are disastrous and wrongly kept secret and lied about. ... A lesson to be drawn from reading the Pentagon Papers, knowing all that followed or has come out in the years since, is this. To those in the Pentagon, state department, the White House, CIA (and their counterparts in Britain and other Nato countries) who have similar access to mine then and foreknowledge of disastrous escalations in our wars in the Middle East, I would say: Don't make my mistake. Don't do what I did. Don't wait until a new war has started in Iran, until more bombs have fallen in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, Libya, Iraq or Yemen. Don't wait until thousands more have died, before you go to the press and to Congress to tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes or internal projections of costs and dangers. Don't wait 40 years for it to be declassified, or seven years as I did for you or someone else to leak it. The personal risks are great. But a war's worth of lives might be saved Overcoming Despair as the Republicans Take Over: A Conversation with Noam Chomsky by Rabbi Michael Lerner at Tikkun.org ...It’s not a great secret that the business classes in the United States, which are always fighting a bitter class war and are highly class-conscious, have been dedicated to destroying unions ever since the 1930s. And they’ve succeeded considerably in the private sphere, but not yet as successfully in the public sphere, and that’s what’s being targeted now: a major effort, a propaganda effort — the media are participating, both parties are involved — to try and undermine public unions. And that’s one of the points on this attack on public working people, turning them into the criminals that were responsible for the fiscal crisis. Not Goldman Sachs, but the teachers and policemen and so on. ... This is part of the large propaganda campaign to try to undermine the public sector: demonizing teachers, police, and firemen with all kinds of fabrications about how they are overpaid, when in fact they’re underpaid relative to the skill levels in the private sector — denouncing their pensions and so on. These are major propaganda efforts, a kind of class war, and that ought to be combated, and I think that public opinion can be organized to combat it. Those are very concrete things that are happening right now, like the possibility of ending the closing down of factories and the mass suffering that it leads to, and turning that into something really radical: mainly worker self-managed production for human needs. Read the rest about climate change, nuclear arms and Israel/Palestine among other topics. Next read The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families (part 1 of 4) then The Federal Reserve Cartel: Freemasons and The House of Rothschild (part 2 of 4) Next Week: Part III: Knights of the Roundtable and The Illuminati AND the very lengthy Thomas Pogge on the Past, Present and Future of Global Poverty so you can next read Michael Hudson's post Rolling Back the Progressive Era and now see if you can pick up some threads. Long week at the Brick TeeVee compound but the garden is IN finally! Happy Dads Day! See you next week! smoke-n-shades

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.
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!_©
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!_©
ACCESS NOW At BTV we're all about Net Neutrality but apparently the G8 is not. G8: Protect the Net by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: For the first time, the leaders of the G8 developed countries are going to discuss internet policy. Instead of promoting net neutrality and user privacy and combating online censorship, the French government has locked civil society out of these conversations, while inviting CEOs -- some of whom paid $100,000 for their seat at the table -- who are pushing policies like strict intellectual property enforcement, which will line corporate pockets while curtailing our digital rights. Unless we speak out now, decisions about internet policy are going to be made at the highest levels without our voices represented. Please sign this urgent petition calling on the G8 to adopt citizen-centered internet policies, which we’ll deliver at a press conference to the world media on Monday in Paris. Much more at www.accessnow.org
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. Today the Campaign for America’s Future is sending letters to all the major media demanding that the views of the American Majority be represented in the news programs, print articles and opinion pages, and in the non-stop daily and Sunday talk shows in which the debate about America’s future is being conducted as we move toward the showdown over the budget. We are demanding representation in the media proportional to the size of the American Majority. And we are making the point that the views of the majority are not irrational—and that in a democracy the majority deserves to be heard, not patronized. We are also supplying the media with an extensive list of economists, experts and advocates who share the majority view that deficits are not now the major threat to U.S. prosperity, and that getting revenue back into the budget is far less damaging (and more just) than cutting spending and crippling important programs for the poor and the elderly. And we are telling them that occasionally featuring the great Paul Krugman, as though his views represent a lonely majority, is not enough. ... The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
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 UPDATE! War Against War: A Meditation on Bradley Manning’s Mind By Scott Tucker “Bradley Manning’s Mind.” I took a deep breath when I read that title over this brief item recently posted on Truthdig ... Without our defense, a prisoner such as Bradley Manning is defenseless against the media, the military and the government. We can at least spread the word about the Bradley Manning Support Network. There has already been online discussion among gay folks and the queer left about the “Frontline” show that pathologized Manning, and now The Guardian video report features a soldier with blurred face saying Manning pissed in his pants and curled up on his bunk “in a fetal position.” Maybe he did, after being repeatedly insulted and assaulted by fellow soldiers, by the account of this same anonymous informant. ... If Manning’s mind was fractured, then (as the paradox is known in the Latin liturgy), felix culpa! If guilty as charged, then Manning is one of the people who helped fracture the state secrets of an anti-democratic bipartisan regime that keeps racking up and tracking down ever more political “suspects”—even while career politicians carry out imperial wars with ever more expensive high-tech weapons. The “intelligence” that Manning is charged with passing to WikiLeaks turned out to be one of the inspirations for the Arab rebellions across the Middle East and North Africa; and there has been a real earthquake in the fields of mass media and journalism, with aftershocks following almost weekly. If the traditional guardians of the daily news so deeply resent Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks, that is because they long ago traded away integrity and independence in the sly scramble for “access” to power, press conferences and photo opportunities. Show me a human being without fractures and I’ll show you a robot. Much more at link.
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!
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

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The essential guide for watching government propaganda
IRAQ: 4,460 US Military Dead as of June 10, 2011
AFGHANISTAN: 1,615 US Military Dead as of June 10, 2011
The Obameter: Tracking Obama's Campaign Promises
Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative

This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour
• 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'
Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer
60 Minutes (CBS)
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!
State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) "politics New Hampshire style"
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.
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.
Amen to the White Rose Society! Donate to Head On HERE!
YOUR 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! .....more at BradBlog.com.
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
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.
• 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!

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!"
ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
Listen at antiwar.com/radio
Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio!
fauxnews

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Brick TeeVee - THEY report. YOU throw bricks. ©

We're here because you're there. ©

First brick is on us!
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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Brick TeeVee On Wisconsin Onslaught!

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Brick TeeVee On Wisconsin Onslaught! BEFORE YOU READ ANY OF THIS LISTEN TO BRAD FRIEDMAN WITH PETER B COLLINS MP3 HERE. Pay attention! We'll wait. ... ... ... Wisconsin native John Nichols at The Nation reports Russ Feingold’s March With Workers Stirs Talk of a Political Comeback

“I’m here to lend my voice to the cause. I know something about budgets. I know how important they are, and I wanted to be here at this critical time to do whatever I can to help the working people that are fighting the Walker budget,” explained Feingold, as he marched with dozens of highway crew workers from Rock County, where he grew up in the city of Janesville. “There really has never been a fight more central, more important, to the working people of Wisconsin. I wanted to stand with the people whose rights are being threatened, to march with them, to say that fighting this governor is the right thing to do and that I am in this fight as a private citizen who is ready to do whatever I can to bring some sense back to this debate.” Feingold is, indeed, a private citizen. But for Wisconsin Democrats, there is a real desire to see Feingold, a maverick progressive who was defeated in last year’s Republican wave election, jump back into politics. At last weekend’s state Democratic Party convention, a paid of straw polls asked who delegates would like to see run for the U.S. Senate seat that will come open next year and for the governorship in a potential recall election against Walker. Feingold won both polls by landslides. So is the former senator thinking of running for senator – or governor. “When people express that kind of confidence in you, you have to take it seriously,” Feingold said of the straw poll results. “It means a lt means a lot to me. These are people I have worked with on campaigns for years, on issue fights. So when they indicate that they’d like to see me run for senator, or for governor, I respect that.” Still, Feingold, who just finished teaching a constitutional law class and is now deep into writing a book on foreign policy, the lure of the campaign trail is less powerful than some might imagine. There’s no grimace on his face when he refers to himself as a “private citizen”; he likes the title, and the lifestyle.

Nichols adds

Wisconsin Protests Ramp Up With Approach of Budget Showdown, Recall Elections ...Yet Walker refuses to compromise. So beholden is he to political paymasters such as the Koch brothers and the De Vos family, which has steered millions of dollars into the state to promote his extreme proposals to replace on of the nation’s strongest public education systems with voucher programs and privatization schemes, that the governor continues to pressure his legislative allies to enact a biennial budget that slashes spending for education and local services. Like his national counterpart, Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, Walker spins the fantasy that he is interested in balancing budgets. But his initiatives actually shift spending away from the public sphere and toward the accounts of major campaign contributors. To protect themselves politically, Walker and friendly legislators are busy seeding the budget proposals with anti-union proposals, which are designed to weaken organized labor as an electoral check and balance on corporate-tied Republican politicians. At the same time, they are rushing to enact draconian restrictions on voter participation and local democracy. The governor’s “dictatorial” approach—as it has been described by the senior member of the state legislature—and his power plays have stirred a new outcry. Wisconsinites are back in the streets, camping out around the state Capitol as part of a “Walkerville” protest that takes its name from the “Hooverville” encampments of the Depression era. ... But Walker and the most desperate of his Republican compatriots are working overtime to implement as much of the governor’s program as possible. The reason for the aggressive push to enact unpopular programs is clear enough. Walker’s actions have so offended the voters of the state that they are preparing to remove his allies from state Senate seats and shift control of the legislative chamber from the Republicans to the Democrats. That would stall the governor’s agenda, increase the prospect that he might be recalled next January and knock him off any serious list of GOP presidential or vice presidential prospects. Political operatives and lawyers aligned with Walker, the Republican majority in the state Senate and the state Republican Party are attempting to block the recall elections, while at the same time trying to force recall elections against Democratic senators who objected to the governor’s agenda. ... They will continue the delaying tactics, however, seeking to buy time to advance of the governor’s anti-labor, anti-education, anti–social services agenda as they can before their electoral judgment day.

It's not just delaying and obstruction tactics, either. Reporting for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Pulitzer Prize Winner Daniel Bice busts 'em! From his No Quarter blog Wisconsin GOP leaders encouraging colleagues to place fake Democrats on recall ballots In letters obtained by No Quarter, local Republican Party officials are encouraging their GOP colleagues to collect enough signatures to get a fake Democratic candidate on the ballot in each of two upcoming recall elections. The spoiler Democrats, who are identified by name in the letters, would run in the Democratic primaries for the seats now held by Republican Sens. Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac and Luther Olsen of Ripon. Both of the fake Democrats have a history of giving almost exclusively to major Republicans. "We need to make sure Democrat challengers face primaries to allow our Republicans time to mount a campaign," Dan Feyen, chairman of the 6th Congressional District Republican Party, wrote in the letter to "fellow conservatives" on Friday. "A Democratic primary," Feyen continued, "will push the general election back by one month, so that Senator Hopper can have more time to organize a campaign against his liberal challenger." That's verbatim what is in the other two-page letter encouraging support for the second fake Democratic candidate, except that note substitutes Olsen's name for Hopper's. Feyen confirmed that he sent his letter trying to get a "protest candidate" on the ballot in the Hopper race. What's more, he said there's a good explanation for why his letter and the one written by local Republican officials in Olsen's district were virtually the same. "It's something being coordinated by the RPW," he said, referring to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Officials with the state party could not be reached for comment. ....By running these fake Democrats, Republicans would force the Democratic challengers to spend money on a primary that could have been used in the general election. Plus, the spoiler candidates could launch negative attacks on the Democrats while the Republican incumbents remain above the fray. ... Local GOP officials in La Crosse were also secretly recorded on May 25 discussing getting a spoiler Democratic candidate in the recall election tentatively scheduled for Republican Sen. Dan Kapanke of La Crosse. During that discussion, La Crosse County Republican officials mention Mark Jefferson, the former head of the state GOP , and Kapanke's campaign manager. Kapanke's campaign has denied any involvement in the matter. Jefferson, who stepped down to take a job with the national party last week, has not commented. In an interview Sunday, Hopper said he also had no involvement in the attempt to get a fake Democrat on the ballot in his race. "I have absolutely zero to do with it," said the first-term Republican. Just like Sergeant Schultz from Hogan's Heroes all of the WGOP sleezeballs "know nothing" and deny everything! Wait There's more! If that's not scary enough buddysmelllgoodat du tells us Journalists Targeted and Arrested at Wisconsin State Capital At that time Corcoran dropped Alex to the ground, lunged at me from the elevator and tackled me. The excessive force he used left bruises on my arms and hips. This is too good to snip (h/t jen "I think the WI Dems should do it, but I bet they won't.")

Key Question For Wis. Dems: To Run Fake Candidates, Or Not? ERIC KLEEFELD
Wisconsin Democrats now face a key decision in the state Senate recalls: After Republicans have declared a strategy to plant fake candidates in the Democratic primaries -- in order to delay the general elections from July to August, and make trouble in the Dem primaries while the GOP incumbents run unopposed -- will they respond in kind and plant fake candidates on the Republican side? Earlier on Friday, the labor-backed progressive group We Are Wisconsin called upon Dems to run some fake Republican candidates, arguing that this was necessary in order to stop the Republicans from sabotaging the Dem primaries. From their statement:

chicanery

Running fake Republicans, the argument goes, would force GOP voters to stick to their own primary and prevent a spoiler from winning on that side, thus defusing any such potential ploy. TPM sought comment from the state Dems and was told a statement was forthcoming. So at time of writing, the gears appear to still be turning on this question at the Dem headquarters. The filing deadline for those recalls is this Tuesday, July 13, at 5 p.m. CT. In order to qualify for the ballot, candidates must at that time also file at least 400 signatures collected from the district, with 800 signatures as the maximum allowed in order to have a buffer against disqualifications. The key here is that recalls are now tentatively scheduled for July 12, under the state election officials' proposed timelines, targeting six Republicans. If there were only one Democrat against each one Republican, then the July 12 date would be the general election. But if there were additional Democrats, the July 12 date would then become the primary, giving the incumbents more time to campaign for a general election in August. Also, thanks to Wisconsin's open primary system in which anybody can vote in a party primary, it would force the Democrats to spend time, money and resources campaigning for their own nominations.

On top of all that CeeCee at samsedershow.com tells us Scott Walker Replaces Painting Of Low-Income Children With Bald Eagle Taking a play from Gov. Paul LePage’s (R-ME) playbook, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) took down a portrait of three children on a Milwaukee street from the governor’s residence. Originally commissioned by the foundation that runs the governor’s residence, the painting depicts an African American girl who was featured in an article on homelessness, a Hispanic girl who is a member of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, and a white boy whose father and brother were killed by a drunk driver in 2009. Entitled “Wishes in the Wind,” local artist David Lenz said he “carefully selected” these children because “the homeless, central city children and victims of drunk drivers normally do not have a voice in politics.” After moving in this January, Walker and first lady Tonette Walker, however, thought another painting would be more fitting for the mansion’s mantle place. Taking down “Wishes in the Wind,” the Walkers promptly replaced it with “a century-old painting of Old Abe, a Civil war-era bald eagle from Wisconsin.” “Deeply disappointed” by the move, Lenz — whose work also hangs in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery — considered the removal telling of Walker’s priorities. “This seems symbolic,” said Lenz, referring to Walker’s proposed cuts in state funding for Milwaukee schools and city and county services, something he said would have a disproportionate impact on low-income youngsters. “You would think we could all agree on the need to support the hopes and dreams of children.” Of course, not Walker, LePage, Kasich and all the other reptiles. We now go to Michael T. Klare (tomdispatch.com via alternet.org) for 3 Massive World Events That Will Change Your Life - Crucial developments taking place in 2011 are changing the way we are likely to live on this planet for the foreseeable future. As for the bad news: the world faces an array of intractable energy problems that, if anything, have only worsened in recent weeks. These problems are multiplying on either side of energy’s key geological divide: below ground, once-abundant reserves of easy-to-get “conventional” oil, natural gas, and coal are drying up; above ground, human miscalculation and geopolitics are limiting the production and availability of specific energy supplies. With troubles mounting in both arenas, our energy prospects are only growing dimmer. ... It is against this backdrop that three crucial developments of 2011 are changing the way we are likely to live on this planet for the foreseeable future. In the Global War on Global Climate Change h/t CeeCee "Show Me" The Plan where "Greenpeace protesters spent four days in a survival pod attached to the the Leiv Eiriksson rig"

Judge tells Cairn to issue spill response plan

Cairn Energy should publish details of how it would respond to a Gulf of Mexico-style oil spill in the Arctic, a judge said yesterday. The Scottish oil explorer (up 4.4p to 429.6p) was in an Amsterdam court seeking an injunction to prevent Greenpeace activists from disrupting its drilling. The court battle came after 18 protesters forced a 12-hour shutdown of one of Cairn's rigs at the weekend, before being removed by Greenland police, backed by the Danish navy. But the judge said he needed more time to consider the injunction and also told Cairn that it should publish its secret oil spill response plan. Environmentalists say that a clean up like the one launched in response to BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill would be nigh-on impossible in the icy Arctic waters.

Oil Company's Lawsuit Against Greenpeace Backfires

THE NETHERLANDS - Today an Amsterdam court judge turned the tables on Cairn Energy. Rather than granting an injunction against Greenpeace, he instead suggested that the oil company might actually like to consider releasing its secret Arctic Oil Spill Response Plan!(Greenpeace protesters spent four days in a survival pod attached to the the Leiv Eiriksson rig. Cairn energy subsequently sued Greenpeace for lost revenue, but today a judge turned the tables by questioning why the oil giant would not simply release their "secret" oil cleanup plan.) Cairn’s lawyers looked dumbfounded and stuttered about not knowing why their client won't release it. The judge went on to say that BP's skimping on a second valve cost the world billions as a result of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. He said BP must regret that they didn't have their plans scrutinized in the first place because someone would have noticed the lack of a second valve. Safety is in everyone’s interest - by being transparent perhaps there is an opportunity to make the spill plan stronger. In fact, he asked Cairn, why won't you release your plan? Right now? Why don't you release it now?

Thanks CeeCee! And more news from Sederville with intrepid nora Global Research TV -- very interesting

FBI Targeting Political Activists as Terrorists Anti-terrorism resources are being used to target environmentalists, peace, animal and political activists who hold different views than the government. It was recently revealed that a counter-terrorism firm spied on individuals who attended film screenings of the documentary Gasland. The film focuses on the practice of natural gas fracking and what impact it has on the environment and in the communities where it is used. The FBI and other government agencies are cracking down on those who are not willing to say in line with the status quo. In Pennsylvania, activists have faced terrorism charges for writing slogans in chalk on sidewalks. In California, 27 individuals are set to go on trial stemming for protest actions Elsewhere 23 anti-war, pro-labor and international solidarity activists may face a grand jury on trumped up charged. The FBI boasts 164,000 suspicious activity reports that are made up of activists who do not follow the governments view on matters. The US government is using taxpayer money to squash the competition as opposed to protecting the American people from true terrorist threats, all while stomping on freedom of speech rights. Carlos Montes, a co-founder of the Brown Berets Chicano Movement explained there is a marked rise of the US government using tools at their disposal designed to fight terrorism to impose oppression on political activists. "The protest movements are directly exposing and challenging the lines that the US government puts out," he said, yet law enforcement authorities continue to crack down without just cause. "It's a war against dissent." The government is working to stop the movement which is merely seeking to exercise its right to free speech and the right to protest. "They're trying to stop us but we're not going to let them do it," Montes added.

Speaking of globalresearch.ca Paul Craig Roberts acknowledges USS Liberty: Government Betrayal and Cover-up Finally Exposed "44 years since this heinous war crime was not only committed but has been covered up -- by all succeeding administrations and mainstream media. It is a "must read" for those concerned about an attack on America; the needless slaughter of American citizens" on June 8th 1967 and B.F. Bankie points out NATO is in an Act of War Against Africa Ya think? Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR.org) saw ABC's Raddatz, Citing Her 'Combat Mission,' Says Bombs Must Go On Afghan president Hamid Karzai denounced once again U.S./NATO airstrikes that killed civilians. In this recent incident, 14 were killed, including 11 children. This prompted ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer (5/31/11) to call in ABC reporters to sort things out, leading to this exchange with Pentagon reporter Martha Raddatz: [Sawyer-Raddatz exchange] So bombing raids in Afghanistan "have to continue," for the sake of having a "rapid response" to "real-time intelligence." And Raddatz, who has "been on a combat mission," can assure you how "very, very careful" they are--why, on the mission she flew, they didn't bomb a target simply because they thought it was a school! This great care taken to not kill civilians sometimes gets more attention than the actual killing of civilians. The piece helpfully included footage of Raddatz on her combat mission, gathering all the "facts" necessary to produce this kind of journalism. Yes Real Journalism! which today means "STENOGRAPHER" for the Beltway Bubalas. However, Richard Glover at the Sydney Morning Herald penned a piece about global-warming deniers entitled Bone-headed beliefs bound to end in death by drowning last weekend. Glover explains in A climate change wave of hate After 25 years writing this column, I've had my first experience of an internet hate campaign. So far, more than 2400 people, nearly all American, have emailed me. More emails come every time I hit the send/receive button. About 5 per cent contain threats of violence. Even stranger, quite a few threaten me with sexual violence. They say, in various forms, that they want to rape me.The only good news: quite a few don't seem to know the precise location of Sydney. Or Sidney, as some call it. ''You are so out of touch with America, I cannot believe you are published by an American paper,'' writes one emailer, having read the story on The Sydney Morning Herald website. Quite a few tell me I should be nervous if I ever try to leave Britain. So far, so hum-hum. On Saturday and Sunday, the piece never made it to the Herald's list of ''most read'' opinion pieces. I had nine emails - four of them saying they agreed, five against, but all expressed pleasantly. No one thought the piece was offensive or even that remarkable. The comic hyperbole was seen as, well, comic hyperbole. Then - sometime Sunday night - a link to the piece was put on a right-wing website in the US, offering me up as another communist trying to ruin the world through the ''hoax'' of climate change. The piece started multiplying in cyberspace, mainly on websites dedicated to exposing the leftist conspiracy about climate change. Suddenly I was the toast of town: about 300,000 people read the piece on smh.com.au between Sunday night and Tuesday morning. I had more readers than anyone else in the Herald. Only problem was: many of them wanted to kill me...Be sure to read the rest of the whole sordid affair. And so it goes with the brain-dead, fact-free, FOX-viewing teabaggers in the U.S. How did this happen? Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson explains in How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory: The onetime Nixon operative has created the most profitable propaganda machine in history. Inside America's Unfair and Imbalanced Network READ NOW before it goes behind the RS Pay Wall! Next The Nation's Setphen F. Cohen announces The New American Cold War EDITOR'S NOTE: This article--originally published in the July 10, 2006, issue of The Nation--appears with a new introduction by the author restating his analyses and arguments in the context of recent developments. Two reactions to this article were particularly noteworthy when it first appeared in The Nation almost exactly one year ago. Judging by activity on the magazine's website and by responses sent to me personally, it was very widely read and discussed both in the United States and in Russia, where it was quickly translated on a Russian-language site. And, unlike most Russian commentators, almost every American specialist who reacted to the article, directly or indirectly, adamantly disputed my thesis that US-Russian relations had deteriorated so badly they should now be understood as a new cold war--or possibly as a continuation of the old one. Developments during the last year have amply confirmed that thesis. Several examples could be cited, but two should be enough. The increasingly belligerent charges and counter-charges by officials and in the media on both sides, "Cold-War-style rhetoric and threats," as the Associated Press recently reported, read like a replay of the American-Soviet discourse of the 1970s and early 1980s. And the unfolding conflict over US plans to build missile defense components near post-Soviet Russia, in Poland and the Czech Republic, threatens to reintroduce a dangerous military feature of that cold-war era in Europe. Nonetheless, most American officials, journalists and academics, unwilling perhaps to confront their unwise policies and mistaken analyses since the Soviet Union ended in 1991, continue to deny the cold-war nature of today's relationship with Russia. Great just we need: more nukes! This reminds us of Ben Cohen of "Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream" and True Majority Ben's BBs, a visual aid to explain the madness of maintaining the nuclear weapon stockpiles (can you say Fukushima?). Will The Banksters And The Corpocracy Eventually Own It All? 29 Statistics About Extreme Income Inequality In America That Will Blow Your Mind Do share with friends and family everywhere. Then ask them how Republican "Values" have helped them and why they are Republicans to begin with (everyone knows at least one ditto-head). Everyone needs a personal Exit Strategy (as the late Chalmers Johnson spoke of - bonus points if you can find this talk on cspan), certainly the BTV crew has mulled over it and Mike Malloy shared this "Moment with Bob" on Friday: This Would Be Common Knowledge If More People Knew About It I know … I know … the health care insurance system in these United States has been talked about and talked about until everybody’s eyes have glazed over. We pay twice as much for health care and in return we rank 42nd in the world in life expectancy and 33rd when it comes to infant mortality. The last time the subject of “Health Care Reform” came up, health care companies and their 3,000 registered health care lobbyists … that's six lobbyists for every member of Congress by the way … spent $1.4 million a day to make sure our money continued to flow into their pockets. Old news … right? Nothing to see here folks so move along to the next topic du jour. Now that the Democrats, the Republicans, and Obama, have “reformed” Health Care … it’s off to fix whatever else needs reforming. But a couple of days ago I went back to thinking about Health Care Costs. I don’t know why. For some reason I just started wondering about how much our family was spending on Health Care Premiums every month. All throughout the “Health Care Debate” that brought out the screaming Tea-baggers from wherever the hell it is they came from, I looked at our nation’s health care costs … but I never looked at our own. ... Our health care premiums are almost $13,000 a year. My wife’s company pays over $30,000 on top of that. By the time the dust settles health care coverage for my wife, our son, and your humble narrator is $14,673.68 per person. You’d think for that kind of money we’d get something out of it. Not really. Even at $14,673.68 a year there are co-pays, deductibles, and if things get really bad … caps on how much the insurance company will allow. ...This is the racket insurance companies are willing to spend $1.4 million a day to protect. In 2009, the United States federal, state and local governments, corporations and individuals, together spent $2.5 trillion or $8,047 per person, on health care. 44 to 55 million Americans aren’t covered. How much more would it be if everyone had health care? I’m not talking about how much more it would cost if everyone had health care insurance. How much would it cost if everyone had health care? Well … Canada spends 60% less than we do, $4,867 per person, and every Canadian citizen is covered by the national health care system. ... I don’t speak French, I’m too old to learn a new language, and we’re definitely not going to move to a different country just because of their health care system. But we are packing. We are going to move. By the end of the summer we’ll be expatriated Americans living in Canada. The reason we’re leaving is simple. Our son is 11 years old. We want to give him the opportunity to spend the last of his childhood … and then grow up … in a country that hasn’t gone completely crazy. There’s just too much stupid going on here. Too much crazy as far as the eye can see. We know we’re not moving to Shangri-La North. When the artist Robert Crumb moved to France years ago he said, “France isn't - you know - perfect, or anything, but - it's just - oh, slightly less evil than the United States.” "TOO MUCH STUPID GOING ON HERE" - well said Bob, well said. Bon Voyage and Good Luck! The BTV crew may be right behind you as The Sorrows of Empire and SHOCK DOCTRINE take firm hold here while the teabagger-flat-earthers clean us out state-by-state and our social safety net gets taken down by "progressive" President Not Sure and his "bipartisanshipppy" cohorts, one regulation at a time, in the name of the "deficit" and "belt-tightening" while multi-supra-national corporations and the Über-Wealthy get even more tax cuts, subsidies and get-out-of-jail cards to go with their polluting Hum-Vees, yachts and private jets. Of course NONE of this will be covered by the Beltway Bubalas on the Sunday Bobblehead talk shows. Best bet for sanity is ROBERT REICH on This Anampout and throw bricks at ex-Goldman cheif JON CORZINE and RICHARD SHELBY while more brick throwing exercises await at Face the Bob with PAUL RYAN and LINDSEY GRAHAM. 60 Minutes mails it in with summertime repeats while Meet the David goes with "first debate between the new DNC Chair DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ & RNC Chair REINCE PRIEBUS" Haha! "REINCE"! Have a brick or three, loser! Look for more smart commentary in the BTV Alerts and all our regulars: Sam, Max, Pap and especially Scott at AntiWarRadio with RAY MCGOVERN. The Brick TeeVee Crew worked furiously tilling and raking and shoveling "zoo poo" in the main big garden and we're all set to get it planted on Sunday with peppers (6 kinds), zucchini, cabbage, tomatoes (4 kinds), butternut squash, eggplant and more! Have an enjoyable Sunday and GO TRIBE!

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.
»»» Dr. Gabor Maté @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Dr. Gabor Maté: Obama Admin Should Heed Global Panel’s Call to End "Failed" U.S.-Led Drug War June 6, 2011
»»» Egypt's Rafah Crossing Closed @ Democracy NOW! Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar were one of the few teams of foreign journalists to witness the scene at the Rafah border, and they file this report from the Gaza Strip. WATCH NOW Trapped in Gaza: Rafah Crossing Closed to Palestinians Soon After Egyptian Pledge to Reopen It June 7, 2011
»»» Playwright Eve Ensler and Congolese Activist Christine Schuler Deschryver @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW “There is a Women’s Spring Beginning”: Playwright Eve Ensler and Congolese Activist Christine Schuler Deschryver on Gender Violence in Congo RELATED: Eve Ensler Responds to Sexual Assault Charges Filed Against Former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn June 7, 2011
»»» BILL MOYERS @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Bill Moyers on His Legendary Journalism Career: "Democracy Should Be a Brake on Unbridled Greed and Power" June 8, 2011
»»» Nabeel Rajab, president of Bahrain’s Center for Human Rights @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Obama Hides Meeting with Top Bahraini Leader—And Mutes Criticism of Ongoing Crackdown June 9, 2011
»»» Annie Jacobsen, investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times Magazine @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Annie Jacobsen on New Book, "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base" June 9, 2011
»»» Robert Alvarez, former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy & Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the group Green Action @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Japan Admits 3 Nuclear Meltdowns, More Radiation Leaked into Sea; U.S. Nuclear Waste Poses Deadly Risks June 10, 2011
»»» Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Dale Maharidge @ Democracy NOW! WATCH NOW Dale Maharidge’s Chronicles of Widely Ignored U.S. Working Poor Inspire Music of Bruce Springsteen inspired Bruce Springsteen to write the songs "Youngstown" and "The New Timer" with his first book, "Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass.” Maharidge’s most recent book, "Someplace Like America: Tales from the New Great Depression," is a reported retrospective on his 30 years of covering the working poor and chronically unemployed. He and photographer Michael Williamson traveled more than half a million miles around the United States, reporting the story of how workers’ lives have gotten steadily worse. We speak to Maharidge about his work and how it came to inspire some of Springsteen’s most notable socially conscious songs. June 10, 2011
GRITtv

»»» GRITtv @ www.grittv.org with Laura Flanders
»»» BIG NEWS @ GRITtv GRITtv is becoming The Laura Flanders Show! As you know, we have been pursuing national syndication. We are now pleased to announce that starting later this summer, The Laura Flanders Show will appear on public TV stations across the country -- including in major markets in San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, distributed by EPS, Executive Program Services Inc. (more...) And read more at The F Word @ GRITtv from May 13th, 2011 The F Word: Goodbye For Now from GRITtv
BRICK TEEVEE SPORT!_©
»»» NASCAR on TNT It's the 5-Hour Energy 500 fon the tri-oval 2.5 mile Pocono Raceway! Coverage begins at TNT at 1 pm et
»»» MLB on TBS INDIANS @ Yankees! 1 pm et GO TRIBE!
»»» Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Reds @ Giants 8 pm et
»»» Monday Night Baseball on ESPN INDIANS @ Yankees! 7 pm et GO TRIBE!
»»» NBA FINALS on ABC GAME 6 Mavs @ Heat for the 2011 Championship 8 pm et Sunday. Mavs have a 3-2 advantage in the best-of-seven series!
BRICK TEEVEE ACTION!_©
ACCESS NOW At BTV we're all about Net Neutrality but apparently the G8 is not. G8: Protect the Net by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: For the first time, the leaders of the G8 developed countries are going to discuss internet policy. Instead of promoting net neutrality and user privacy and combating online censorship, the French government has locked civil society out of these conversations, while inviting CEOs -- some of whom paid $100,000 for their seat at the table -- who are pushing policies like strict intellectual property enforcement, which will line corporate pockets while curtailing our digital rights. Unless we speak out now, decisions about internet policy are going to be made at the highest levels without our voices represented. Please sign this urgent petition calling on the G8 to adopt citizen-centered internet policies, which we’ll deliver at a press conference to the world media on Monday in Paris. Much more at www.accessnow.org
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE American Majority Rejects Washington Austerity Consensus – And We Demand Media Coverage by Roger Hickey, President, Campaign for America's Future: No more silent majority. Today the Campaign for America’s Future is sending letters to all the major media demanding that the views of the American Majority be represented in the news programs, print articles and opinion pages, and in the non-stop daily and Sunday talk shows in which the debate about America’s future is being conducted as we move toward the showdown over the budget. We are demanding representation in the media proportional to the size of the American Majority. And we are making the point that the views of the majority are not irrational—and that in a democracy the majority deserves to be heard, not patronized. We are also supplying the media with an extensive list of economists, experts and advocates who share the majority view that deficits are not now the major threat to U.S. prosperity, and that getting revenue back into the budget is far less damaging (and more just) than cutting spending and crippling important programs for the poor and the elderly. And we are telling them that occasionally featuring the great Paul Krugman, as though his views represent a lonely majority, is not enough. ... The Campaign for America’s Future is joining with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (whose Co-Director, Dean Baker blogs regularly about economic bias in the media) and with FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) to monitor the media’s coverage and representation of the American Majority views as they go into covering the big deficit fight. But we want to enlist YOU too. Send us accounts of unbalanced coverage in the national media and in your local newspapers and television. Call up reporters, editors, assignment people and tell them when they are under-representing the views of the American Majority. We should have at least half the experts, pundits, quotes and real people represented in their coverage. In a debate as important as the one we are going into, we can’t allow the media to ignore the American Majority. Much more at www.ourfuture.org
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 UPDATE! War Against War: A Meditation on Bradley Manning’s Mind By Scott Tucker “Bradley Manning’s Mind.” I took a deep breath when I read that title over this brief item recently posted on Truthdig ... Without our defense, a prisoner such as Bradley Manning is defenseless against the media, the military and the government. We can at least spread the word about the Bradley Manning Support Network. There has already been online discussion among gay folks and the queer left about the “Frontline” show that pathologized Manning, and now The Guardian video report features a soldier with blurred face saying Manning pissed in his pants and curled up on his bunk “in a fetal position.” Maybe he did, after being repeatedly insulted and assaulted by fellow soldiers, by the account of this same anonymous informant. ... If Manning’s mind was fractured, then (as the paradox is known in the Latin liturgy), felix culpa! If guilty as charged, then Manning is one of the people who helped fracture the state secrets of an anti-democratic bipartisan regime that keeps racking up and tracking down ever more political “suspects”—even while career politicians carry out imperial wars with ever more expensive high-tech weapons. The “intelligence” that Manning is charged with passing to WikiLeaks turned out to be one of the inspirations for the Arab rebellions across the Middle East and North Africa; and there has been a real earthquake in the fields of mass media and journalism, with aftershocks following almost weekly. If the traditional guardians of the daily news so deeply resent Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks, that is because they long ago traded away integrity and independence in the sly scramble for “access” to power, press conferences and photo opportunities. Show me a human being without fractures and I’ll show you a robot. Much more at link.
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!
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

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Considering Democracy: 8 Things to ask your Representative

This Week (ABC) with Christiane Amanpour
• 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'
• Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, author of "Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future"
• Chairman/CEO of MF Global Inc. Jon Corzine, who is also the former governor of New Jersey and former Chairman/CEO of Goldman Sachs
• ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.)
• ROUNDTABLE: Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal; ABC News senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper; and ABC News' George Will
• ROUNDTABLE II: ABC News' Claire Shipman, co-author of "Womenomics," former Assistant Pentagon Press Secretary Torie Clarke, and Cecilia Attias, former wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Face The Nation (CBS) Host Bob Schiefer - Topics: Jobs & the Economy, the War in Afghanistan
• House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md.
• House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. (at left)
• Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (center)
60 Minutes (CBS)
• Designing Life - Steve Kroft profiles famous microbiologist Craig Venter, whose scientists have already mapped the human genome and created what he calls "the first synthetic species." Andy Court is the producer.
• The N-Word - A Southern publisher's sanitized edition of "Huckleberry Finn" that replaces the N-word with "slave" over 200 times is the focal point for a debate on the use of the controversial word in American society. Byron Pitts reports. David Schneider 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!
• The first debate between the new DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and RNC Chair Reince Priebus.
• Our Meet The Candidates series continues with former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)
• ROUNDTABLE: Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (D), GOP strategist Mike Murphy, MSNBC's Richard Wolffe, and the Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel.
State of the Union With Candy Crowley (CNN) "politics New Hampshire style"
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.
• On the eve of the first New Hampshire Republican Presidential Candidates debate, State of the Union will be live from Manchester, NH to preview Monday’s contest.
• Fmr. Governor John Sununu and Fmr. Senator John Sununu
• Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Rep. Charlie Bass.
• Philip Rucker of The Washington Post and the Neil King of the Wall Street Journal.
• GOP "wild card" John Huntsman
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.
• MORAN MODAY!!!!!! Bob spent the week MARCHING TO BLAIR MOUNTAIN! FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BLAIR MOUNTAIN VISIT: Friends of Blair Mountain or watch THE APPALACHIANS: The Story of Blair Mountain and The Last Mountain! Listen to last Monday's show HERE (mp3)! And tune in to the Head On Radio Network on Monday to hear Bob's recap!
Amen to the White Rose Society! Donate to Head On HERE!
YOUR 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' - June 9th, 2011 IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Limbaugh and Santorum, positively frothy in their propaganda jihad against climate science; Unfair & Unbalanced coverage of the Environmental Protection Agency; Crunch time at the UN on the Kyoto climate treaty; Feds shut down an oil pipeline; PLUS: Scientists are screaming that global warming is accelerating, but our media is obsessed with Weiner --- Anthony Weiner ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see link): Breakthroughs, launches, and warnings on World Oceans Day; Pollution worsens kids' asthma, but Congress split on action; 'Dramatic' solar flare could disrupt earth communications; UN's Food & Agriculture Organization sees stubbornly high food prices; Food demand eating into tropical forests; Judge upholds environmentalist lawsuit against Exxon; Hundreds protest Marcellus Shale drilling in PA; Utility groups trade blows on new EPA emissions rules; Autism experts urge reform of U.S. chemicals law; Decontamination trial planned at Japanese nuclear plant; After Japan, where's the next nuclear weak link?; Federal regulators: Nuclear accident plans are lacking; Oil falls after Saudis face opposition to OPEC quota increase; FDA: some chicken may contain arsenic ... PLUS: Planet Earth doesn't know how to make it any clearer It wants everyone to leave ... 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.
UPDATE! Vegas Mayoral Candidate Watches Own Touch-screen Vote Flip to Opponent AND On 10th Anniversary of the Bush Tax Cuts, What America Could Have Bought Instead.....more at BradBlog.com.
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 260 Boiling Frogs: Paul Craig Roberts on Obama, Osama and the “hoax” of American Democracy; Will Durst on Wiener’s Mis-Tweet Paul Craig Roberts, an outspoken former Reagan administration official, joins us for the latest Boiling Frogs interview, co-hosted with Sibel Edmonds. [Be sure to see the update on Gulen's US charter schools at Boiling Frogs Post.] Will Durst comments on Rep. Anthony Wiener’s Twitter scandal, starting at 1:01:15
• PBC Podcast 261 A Lawbreaker on the Supreme Court? Kevin Zeese on Clarence Thomas; Will Durst on ‘GOP Death Wish’ Attorney/activist Kevin Zeese returns to detail the 20-year failure of Justice Clarence Thomas to report his wife’s income from the Heritage Foundation and right wing lobby groups, and invites you to protest in Washington on October 6; Will Durst says the Republicans have a death wish.
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! June 4th, 2010
• This week on Ring of Fire: We’ll be talking about how Republican billionaires are buying up universities across America to spread their Ayn Rand-inspired economic policies – Investigative journalist Daniel Denvir has the inside story on that.
• Author Ari Berman will be joining us to tell us how Wall Street banks are pouring millions of dollars into an effort to defeat the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• Political activist Justin Jones will be joining us to talk about the many ways in which the American system of capitalism has been an abysmal failure, and the American public has let that system fail because they are too lazy to do something about it.
• Attorney Hunter Lundy will be joining us to talk about the recent decision by the World Health Organization to classify cell phone radiation as a possible carcinogen.
• And if you want to help support the fight against Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, CLICK HERE!
• VIDEO! Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – The Last Mountain“In the valleys of Appalachia, a battle is being fought over a mountain. It is a battle with severe consequences that affect every American, regardless of their social status, economic background or where they live. It is a battle that has taken many lives and continues to do so the longer it is waged. It is a battle over protecting our health and environment from the destructive power of Big Coal. The mining and burning of coal is at the epicenter of America’s struggle to balance its energy needs with environmental concerns. Nowhere is that concern greater than in Coal River Valley, West Virginia, where a small but passionate group of ordinary citizens are trying to stop Big Coal corporations, like Massey Energy, from continuing the devastating practice of Mountain Top Removal.” See thelastmountainmovie.com
• VIDEO! Papantonio: America’s New Service Economy For millions of out of work Americans, the news that the private sector added more than 200,000 new jobs in April was a breath of fresh air. The only problem is that these aren’t the kinds of jobs that Americans would normally be lining up to apply for. 62,000 of these jobs are for McDonald’s, and many of the rest include minimum wage-paying positions that are either for seasonal work, or provide no benefits. This recovery poses a serious question – are we becoming a service society?
• VIDEO! Papantonio: US Chamber Pushing Us Towards Fascism The US Chamber of Commerce was thrilled when the US Supreme Court ruled that they could pour millions of dollars into political races, but it still wasn’t enough for the Chamber. Today, they are still fighting to prevent proposals that would force the Chamber and her member companies to disclose publicly who they are throwing money behind if they want to continue receiving government contracts. This is just the latest step in the Chamber’s plan to make our democratic government completely irrelevant and useless. Mike Papantonio talks about the Chamber’s plan, and how to fight back, with Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen.
• 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!

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discusses the upcoming documentary, The Last Mountain, about the fight for a symbol of Labor pride in West Virginia [06•03•11]
• John Amato of Crooks and Liars on Delta Airlines' Anti-Union Ways [06•06•11]
• Sarah Vowell on her new book "Unfamiliar Fishes" [06•07•11]
• Heather Hurlburt of National Security Network on Yemen [06•09•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!
• VIDEO! The Official Silver Liberation Army! See SilverLiberationArmy.com !
• VIDEO! Jamie Dimon Pulls a Breitbart – Hijacks a Weiner’s Press Conference, Cries Like a Baby & Demands More Love! Stacy Summary: I’m 100% certain this guy is going to try to interrupt the recording of the next episode of the Keiser Report to ask whether the SLA can back down.
• Britain’s decline was extremely rapid after 1914 . . . America next? Read Decline and fall of the American empire at guardian.co.uk “The experience of both Rome and Britain suggests that it is hard to stop the rot once it has set in, so here are the a few of the warning signs of trouble ahead: military overstretch, a widening gulf between rich and poor, a hollowed-out economy, citizens using debt to live beyond their means, and once-effective policies no longer working. The high levels of violent crime, epidemic of obesity, addiction to pornography and excessive use of energy may be telling us something: the US is in an advanced state of cultural decadence.”
• What Keiser sees is the same thing that I see and everyone else who truly understands collapse sees… Read BLAME THE PEASANTS at collapsenet.com
• KEISER REPORT [KR153] Keiser Report – Selling Kidney for iPad
• KEISER REPORT [KR154] Keiser Report: GIABO!
• THE TRUTH ABOUT MARKETS [TaM1203] The Truth About Markets – 11 June 2011 Download mp3 HERE Donations to ResonanceFM here.
• ON THE EDGE [OTE109] On the Edge with John Perkins
• ON THE EDGE [OTE114] On the Edge with Peter Schiff We interview Peter Schiff.
ANTIWAR RADIO with Scott Horton
LIVE (9-11am Pacific, 12pm - 2pm Eastern) Plenty of archives too!
Listen at antiwar.com/radio
• John Lindsay-Poland June 6, 2011: John Lindsay-Poland, research and advocacy director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, discusses his article “Pentagon Using Drug Wars as Excuse to Build Bases in Latin America” how using the military to fight the war on drugs only succeeds in increasing the level of violence; the range of options between current drug policy and outright legalization; how the drug crackdown has guaranteed the most ruthless individuals rise to the top of the black market; and the chorus of voices from the Mexican peace movement and victims of drug violence, speaking out against the military response to drug trafficking.
• Gareth Porter June 08, 2011: Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses his article on Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Slain Writer’s Book Says US-NATO War Served al-Qaeda Strategy” al-Qaeda’s successful plan to draw the US to Afghanistan and keep them there, slowly bleeding the empire dry like the Soviets before; why Osama bin Laden was never more than a figurehead, while Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri remains the real strategist of al-Qaeda; and how Pakistan’s tribal regions have been radicalized, furthering al-Qaeda’s goal of winning Pakistan itself.
• Peter Van Buren June 11, 2011: Peter Van Buren, former State Department Foreign Service Officer in Iraq, discusses his tomdispatch article “How Not to Withdraw from Iraq” “How Not to Withdraw from Iraq” failing to win hearts and minds in Iraq, despite good intentions; how goodwill infrastructure projects like building schools and drinking water facilities were squandered in a money pit of graft and fraud; Hillary Clinton’s chance to play commander in chief of her own State Department mercenary army; and the two very different tiers of mercenaries (low-paid cannon fodder from Uganda and Peru, and high-paid bullies from America, Britain and S. Africa).
• Robert Higgs June 11, 2011: Robert Higgs, senior fellow at the Independent Institute and author of Crisis and Leviathan, discusses his cherished yet under-appreciated chapter 3 in Crisis and Leviathan, about the rational ideological motivation of collective action; beating back the pervasive myth that war stimulates and improves the economy; how the increase in US GDP following massive post-WWII cuts in government spending undermines Keynesian economic theory; and why there is no such thing as free money: government spending is either derived from direct taxation or by debasing the dollar.
• Ray McGovern June 11, 2011: Ray McGovern, member of Veterans For Peace and former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses his article “Gen. Keane Keen on Attacking Iran” the US intelligence analysts who stuck to their guns on the 2007 and 2011 Iran NIE‘s, possibly preventing a war; internal division in the Bush administration on Iraq War strategy, with Rumsfeld and the Iraq Study Group (James Baker and Lee Hamilton) advocating drawdown, and Fred Kagan and Gen. Keane promoting a surge; and the changing of the guard in 2007, as the ambitious Gen. Petraeus displaced Generals Casey and Abizaid.
Many more interviews at Antiwar Radio!
fauxnews
• Tim Pawlenty, Presidential Candidate (R) / Former Minnesota Governor

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