CIVILIANISM PODCAST

Gutting the 4th Amendment? The Congress is seemingly paid off to sell our 4th Amendment rights. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer lead the charge with the most money received to them directly from the telecoms and they are the most enthusiastic in fighting for them. The Senate then voted for cloture and the FISA vote may now be delayed to July. The true heroes of this saga: Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold. Where is Obama on our 4th amendment rights? Nowhere to be seen. Instead, he released a statement that said he supports the compromise.

Supreme Court Exxon decision here.

The Physician’s for Human Rights report called Broken Laws, Broken Lives can be found here.

Major General Antonio Taguba, USA, Preface to Broken Laws, Broken Lives

JUSTICE is on the table — via Lawrence Velvel: Law School to Plan Bush War Crimes Prosecution

“A conference to plan the prosecution of President Bush and other high administration officials for war crimes will be held September 13-14 at the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover .

“This is not intended to be a mere discussion of violations of law that have occurred,” said convener Lawrence Velvel, dean and cofounder of the school. “It is, rather, intended to be a planning conference at which plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth.”

“We must try to hold Bush administration leaders accountable in courts of justice,” Velvel said. “And we must insist on appropriate punishments, including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war-criminals in the 1940s.”

John McCain gave an energy speech that contradicts his own habits! The cars he drives are not energy efficient at all. How about 13 mpg?

June 21 Air Force Air Power Summary – the fuel we are using for war is insane.

As for the FISA compromise: Nancy Pelosi is not upholding the constitution and should be impeached.

FISA compromise bill is here. (Download pdf)

The Politico (linked above) has provided the full text of the compromise bill (114 page PDF file) and points to section 201, listed as, “Procedures for implementing statutory defenses under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.” That is where it explains the portion that has caused the most conflict, which is immunity for the telecommunications industry.

Cloture vote against furthering debate on FISA compromise: List of votes in the Senate

Obama’s support for the FISA “compromise”

AntiWar Radio (Entire Glen Greenwald interview)

How are telecoms are attempting to buy amnesty from Congress? Read about it here.

George Carlin has died, and he was much more than just a comedian. He was a liberal warrior. At the end of this episode I play a clip of Glenn Greenwald on FISA, and a bit of George Carlin. Make sure with the upcoming FISA vote: Call your Senators!

Download this episode here or subscribe on the right. Music at end: Iris DeMent, Our Town. Subscribe to the new podcast feed here. The old one will disappear soon!

[tags]FISA, telecom immunity, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, 4th amendment, constitution, constitutional rights, George Carlin, Maplight, Glenn Greenwald[/tags]

In this episode, Blackwater is back in the news, winning a lawsuit to set up a war zone near San Diego. The Courage Center sponsored a conference call with author Jeremy Scahill and I got to ask him a question about Blackwater.

Habeas Corpus has been restored to the country and John McCain called it with the worst decision the Supreme court has made in his aged memory, which apparently isn’t too good, because the worst decision the Supreme Court ever made by far was when they installed King George as our president.

Here’s a funny Gordon Brown and Bush story

The recent Supreme Court decision on Habeas Corpus restored prisoners rights and even though John McCain was once a prisoner (we think) he doesn’t want them to have their day in court or even know what the charges against them are. What a hypocrite! Worse, the way we have treated prisoners at GITMO has created more terrorists out of regular people that happened to end up in our “enemy combatant” system.

For more reading, here is the McClatchy story: Guantanamo prisoners

More on how torture came “from the top” here.

Oh yes, there are hearings going on about this. Bush won’t be able to squirm his way out of responsibility for prisoner abuse forever. But the big question is: Why is the right-wing mindset so violent and arrogant? The newest breed of Republican is unapologetic, like ultra-violent children on steroids, throwing tantrums that kill. To them, the means always justifies the end, even when the end is elusive, repulsive, deadly, or even impossible, like victory in iraq. This arrogance and callousness is pervasive in the new right-wingers, from their talk show hosts (like Michael Reagan) all the way on up to their top politicians, as they plot more wars that will kill even more people. They also trash the environment and it’s justified by calling it energy independence. Their unapologetic mind-set even extends to the state department, which can’t even celebrate the recent peace agreement in Gaza. Yes, the Bush administration is already trying to ruin the Egypt Hamas-Israel ceasefire.

To add to the fun, Bush’s last lame duck trip to Europe culminated in an astonishing interview with Sky News. I play a good portion of it in this episode, but you must see it to fully appreciate its arrogant and dream-like quality. From Sky News, link to video is here.

Afghanistan is not doing too well at the moment and president Karzai is ready for war with Pakistan. Bush remains oblivious and unconcerned. Blackwater interview done by the Courage Campaign. For more on Blackwater read Jeremy Scahill’s latest article, Blackwater’s Bright Future.

Washington Ordered destruction of Guantanomo interrogation records, story here.

Why drill offshore? We aren’t even drilling on land we have set aside for that purpose, so Democrats are pointing this out.

Hillary Clinton has called for an investigation regarding KBR and possibly $1 billion in inappropriate charges to the Army. Read her letter to Carl Levin here.

Download this podcast episode here or subscribe on the right.

[tags]Civilianism, podcast, progressive, Blackwater, Michael Reagan, Mark Dice, Right-wing radio host, habeas corpus, supreme court, Iraq, President Bush, european Tour, Jeremy Scahill, Sky News[/tags]

The state of American corporate media is in bad shape. The state of independent media is good and getting better! I attended the National Conference on Media Reform last weekend and tell you about it in this podcast. It was fantastic, and I’m so grateful I got to go. THANKS AGAIN to everyone who contributed to help me attend! You can read more about it here, and you can find my photos here and a link to more in a blog entry below this, and find more audio and video at Freepress.net/tune-in

I play two of the speeches and panel talks I heard in this podcast, and will be playing more in the next one. Media reform is essential to our democracy as more and more of our media is being bought out by corporations that are interested in only one thing: profits.
Fortunately, we can all be a part of the media. Podcasting, blogging, making videos, writing stories, communicating information in all ways that is shared IS media. Be your own media, share what you know and get active in the media reform movement.
People from all around the country, regular people and media professionals, shared their stories and methods for creating media and supporting independent media at this conference. Independent media is the future because corporate media has lost its integrity.
I also cover some news: Iraq, Afghanistan, the treaty Bush is trying to force on the Iraqis that they don’t want that would take away their autonomy, and what is happening to an LA news magazine. Also, a man handing out RNC protest information in the form of a piece of paper was arrested on June 5th outside the very convention hall where Republicans will meet to plot in September!

But this is important: Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment. It’s now been sent to the Judiciary Commmittee. His main co-sponsor is Robert Wexler. Call his office, call the Judiciary Committee, call Nancy Pelosi and tell them to impeach George W. Bush! 202 225-3121
It’s important that everyone call Nancy Pelosi’s office and also John Conyer’s office — I just did. It’s easy. Ask for Speaker Pelosi’s comment line. You can then demand she put impeachment back on the table.

Watch the video of O’Reilly calling us crazy and fascists!

Download this podcast here or subscribe on the right.

Music played: Andy Pratt, Masters of War

[tags]podcast, liberals, media, reform NCMR2008, National Media Reform Conference, CODEPINK, Keith Ellison, Minneapolis, podcasting, progressives, impeachment, Kucinich[/tags]

I have added lots of photos to my flickr account from the conference. Feel free to look at them here.

If the link doesn’t work, let me know.

[tags]ncmr2008, media reform conference, minneapolis[/tags]

In between things at the moment and I will write a lot more later. There was an incredible panel today with Phil Donahue, Naomi Klein and Amy Goodman and then later I got Amy to sign my book and I thanked her for all her work. There is a lot of information being passed around here, all of it good. Phil Donahue is a powerhouse and absolutely funny! This morning the speaker was Bill Moyers and his address was also fantastic. Later I ran into a musician from the 70’s who claimed he was once famous but had now been forgotten. (Andy Platt). I had never heard of him before, but he gave me his latest CD and told me I could play all of it I wanted in my podcast.Â

Everyone here is in agreement that big corporate media is pathetic, and alternative media needs to be done, encouraged, supported and spread. Tonight will be a long one, with a big keynote event tonight from 8-10. This should all be online by the way…..just follow the link from one of my previous posts. Here are some photos from today.

Â

Medea Benjamin from CODEPINK.

Believe me when I tell you this… these people all kick ass.  More later. . . . .

[tags]National, Media, Reform, Conference, politics, Codepink, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, Civilianism, Donahue, Medea[/tags]

Too tired to write a real blog post, but the National Media Reform Conference is going great. This morning started out with a bang. Congressman Keith Ellison was extremely enthusiastic. Tonight I saw the movie, Body of War, with Amy Goodman and Phil Donahue and about 500 other people. Really! I think I scared Amy Goodman earlier in the day, (in any case, she sort of ran away from me.) However, I am surrounded by people who think like me and are furious about Iraq and the fact that George Bush isn’t in jail. It’s wonderful. Here are some pictures, and tomorrow is going to be just as wall-to-wall stuff happening so I won’t be writing much at all until I get home on Sunday. The first picture here is of Keith Ellison this morning, the rest of Minneapolis and inside the outside the convention center tonight.

[tags]national media, reform conference, media, NCMR, minneapolis[/tags]

It looks like the Democrats finally have their nominee.
Obama unofficially gets the nomination for the Democrats; Hillary and Obama give gracious, inspiring speeches after the last primaries finally end, and both of them would be better than McCain so let’s get them to run together. Seriously. Then the plan is: Get progressives to fill Congress. The day of Republican rule is over.

Now that he has the clout, Obama should fix what the Rules and Bylaws Committee did on 5/31 — they took votes from one person and gave them, arbitrarily, to another person. It was a backroom deal, away from the public and the cameras. No matter what you think of either candidate, this was wrong, and probably illegal. You can read the details I have gotten from another writer who know the rules better than I do here.

On Monday, McCain gave a frightening, misinformed and misleading AIPAC speech. Obama and Hillary are sure to give similar pro-Israel speeches on Wednesday but they will probably lack the highly paranoid tone of McCain’s speech. Paranoia combined with a war-glorifying tendency is much worse than just plain old tough talk.

The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill is being debated this week in the Senate with a vote next week. Call your Congressman! Dumb Army scientist story here.

Iran gets a new speaker for its parliament. Supposedly, he’s a moderating force. The Ayatollah calls Bush a few choice words. There is little love lost between us and Iran at the moment, thanks to the Bush administration.

Next up, a possible report from the Media Reform Conference. Don’t expect much! When I get back there will be more to it, but I may attempt something low-quality while I am there this weekend.

Blackwater gets a new fighter jet from Brazil and gives it to its new subsidiary, EP Aviation. Along with its new armed helicopters, Blackwater seems to be building its own private Air Force, — I wonder why?

Hear a clip of Terry McAullife on The Daily Show from Tuesday night at the end. You can download this episode here or subscribe on the right.

[tags]Obama, Democratic, nominee, Democrats, Hillary, Clinton, Primary, presidential election, speeches, Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul Minnesota, Iran, Ali, Larijani, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Bush[/tags]