• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont.


• Guest: Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Recap and update on his case.


• John Conyers' committee's "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations" hearing, 25 July 2008. Testimony by Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., Elliott Adams, Bob Barr, Bruce Fein, "Rocky" Anderson, Vincent Bugliosi.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Friday 25 July '08 show

• "If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost." Aristotle.
  
• Article: U.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline.
  
• Bumper Music: Business As Usual, Eagles.
  
• Bumper Music: Everything, Alanis Morissette.
  
• "Access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030."
  Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf.
  
• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont. Obama's foreign tour. McCain's German lunch. The race is not a slam dunk, the Republicans will spend a lot of money on it. Articles about when will McCain will announce his vice president, rather than issues. The issues. Civil liberties. Habeas corpus. McCain would be another 4 years of Bush. Recessions, they are not good for the middle class. Once we get Obama in there is a lot of work to do. Any chance of legislation before November to make election day a national holiday? No, time is too short. He cosponsored something like that in the House.
  
  "U.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline". Republican closed door meeting mentioned on the show the other day is unlikely, though they have many meetings. Bernie will look into the progress of the United Families Act, binational gay relationships. 3 sitting senators attended the same high school, Bernie, Norm Coleman and Chuck Schumer. It also has scientists, academics. There were a lot of immigrant kids whose parents put a lot of emphasis on education. Will the new president make much difference to the economy? Don't expect miracles. There are tough problems. People did better under Clinton. Obama and Bernie are on the education committee. Both agree on the entitlement to health care, but differ on how to tackle it. Why do Democrats vote against oil drilling? Is Obama racist?
  
  The Bush administration's own annual energy outlook report 2007 says, "Access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030." They are stymied every day by the administration and the Republicans in their efforts to do something now to reduce oil and gas prices. A bill to begin to deal with speculation was lost today thanks to Republicans. What can we do to make sure we keep progressive radio going? Thom, Al Franken. We need progressive businesses, and consumers to demand more. Murdoch shows we have to own networks; that's a long term goal. Thom's show is growing, he just added Dallas and others, progressive radio is growing, there's lot of potential. If a new administration is sworn in, can Congress continue investigations, or do they need to ask the president? Congress has the right to look into whatever it wants. Democrats' failure to name things. Windfall profits tax = profiteering tax.
  
• Guest: Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. Recap and update on his case. For the story so far, please see the transcripts from April 29 May 08 June 17 and the show notes for 08 July '08. Karl Rove's written response

  , non answers, not under oath, not saying whether he spoke to Bill Canary. Let's not ignore the constitution. Rove should answer to a subpoena like anyone else. It's a bad precedent. Go to contemptforrove.com or sendrovetojail.com, support Congress holding Karl Rove in contempt. Begin with Bill Canary. What effect might a new president and congress have on the investigations? The Democrats ought to use their majority. Phone calls to Congress are more effective than emails. Call Congress. They are getting away with things like the Nixon administration, Scooter Libby and Jack Abramoff. The notice he got that he was to be treated as a special offender has been reversed, in no small part due to his appearance on Thom's show at the time.
  

• John Conyers' committee is right now hearing testimony relating to Dennis Kucinich's article of impeachment.
  
• Clip (live):
  "... both what has gone wrong and what has gone right we can actually bring our country together and that we can show that when properly respected, our constitutional structure and our ore fundamental values can, as they have for so many years, provide the people of this country and of the world the hope for a better, fuller, fairer life."
  Testimony of Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., before the Hearing on "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations" by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives on July 25, 2008. He also said that now is not the time for impeachment, it is too late because of the elections, but we do have to have the hearings.
  
• As he was walking out of the constitutional convention after they had pulled together the Constitution in 1787, Philadelphia's Mrs. Powell asked, "What sort of nation has been conceived?" Benjamin Franklin said, "It's a Republic, madam, if you can keep it".
  
• Clip (live):
  "... if you can keep it. Honorable representatives ... sums up the essence of what we are here today for: 'if we can keep it'. In the armed forces we took an oath, the same oath congressmen take, to support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Now as veterans we still take that oath seriously. Some of us are gray haired and long of tooth, but are here on the Hill, still defending that constitution. Briefly, Veterans for Peace have members from every war that this country has fought..."
  Elliott Adams Statement at the House Judiciary Committee on Presidential Powers, Veterans for Peace president, July 25, 2008.
  
• Bumper Music: Say (All I Need), Onerepublic. (video)
  
• Support progressive media, including buzzflash.com and commondreams.org, where virtually all the articles Thom has written started out. They and Thom would be rich by now if they were conservative.
  
• Article: Lina Newhouser, CommonDreams.org Co-Founder, 1951-2008.
  
• It was John McCain who said Obama ought to go to Iraq.
  
• Does the way that the law is written give tree farmers the incentive to shoot any spotted owl they see so they don't lose their livelihood and pay the taxes on the land?
  
• Book: The Sixth Extinction, Richard Leakey.
  
• Thom:
  

  The importance of the spotted owl is that it's not just one species going extinct. The spotted owl is an indicator species. It is a species that when it goes it means that an entire ecosystem is collapsing. And so this guy was basically reflecting the world view that the plant is here for us humans and we can do no wrong and we're completely disconnected from all of nature and it doesn't matter what happens to nature. And I'm telling you, that world view is going to destroy us as a species just as rapidly as it's destroying the spotted owl, maybe not just as rapidly, but eventually it'll get us, it has gotten every civilization that has had that world view, ultimately it has caught up with them and destroyed them...
  
  But we really have to take this stuff seriously. When you've got indicator species, when you've got, we're experiencing an extinction right now that is roughly happening as fast as the dinosaurs vanished. Richard Leakey wrote a book about this called "The Sixth Extinction". I mean, we're the top predator. We're at the top of the food chain right now and the top predator is the one that goes when there's a massive extinction. And there's this massive extinction happening. And we could be the ones that end up extinct. And we've got to seriously look at what's going on around us on the planet. We are not separate from nature, we are part of at all. It's all an interconnected web of life. And I don't mean that in some airy fairy way; it's hard science.

  
  
• Bumper Music: Blaze Of Glory Bon Jovi (video).
  
• Article: