• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont.
• "Anything goes" Friday.
• Intelligence Authorization Bill.
• Bush's vetoes and threats to veto.
• Calvinism - the belief that those blessed by God with wealth should rule.
• Carbon-Dioxide Levels At 650,000-Year High.
• Debt spending.

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

Friday 14 December '07 National show

• Show live from AM950, where it is colder than 2 penguins kissing.
• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont. The Energy Bill was passed in the Senate yesterday, but the most important provisions taken out of energy bill, such as tax credits for wind and solar, they will need to reintroduce them. They lost by one vote. The good stuff that was left in. LED lights. Thermal solar plant. Budget debates, not just old fashionable political squabbling; Bush wants huge increases in military spending, but reductions in programs for the people like health, education. Bush is threatening over 50 vetoes. Finland, Scandinavian health and education and environmental programs. Finland, etc., are way ahead of the US on health care. Ted Kennedy. The White House Christmas party for the press. Iraq embassy.

  How can the Pentagon prevent the military from petitioning Congress about illegal orders? Jefferson's "reign of witches". The Republicans have taken different segments of society and focused on a single issue, demagogued, for example gun ownership. They are splitting apart people who would be voting for a progressive agenda. The Energy bill and global warming bill should help keep jobs in the USA, there are provisions for American manufacturers in green technology. Lots of wind turbines, solar are manufactured abroad.

  Why support progressives? Cynicism, alienation, not participating is not the answer, it is what the Bush administration want. They have passed the higher education bill, energy bill, they are paying more attention to vets, they have raised the minimum wage. Some Democrats are not as progressive as he would like, but it is mostly Republicans obstructing. Yesterday hey got 59 votes and still lost. The answer is to continue organizing, educating, bringing more in. Think where we were a year ago. He is very frustrated by vetoes undoing his work. But Congress is not now privatizing social security, cutting Medicare, doing other extremist right wing stuff. Despair is not an option.

  WTO. He voted against NAFTA. When did the world filibuster become just a word not an action? Harry has a huge list of legislation that needs to be passed to enable government to function, so if they stall him he is up against the wall. But Bernie thinks since they are filibustering virtually everything that is important, he should let them filibuster, and work around the clock. Bernie thinks we have got to be more aggressive. 4 presidential candidates being absent does not help. They need a new tactic - filibuster. Judiciary committee, Rove contempt. Bernie will do his best to make them accountable.

• Article: Bush ‘needs’ Hannity and Limbaugh.
  "At the White House Christmas party for the press last night, “conservative talk radio hosts dominated the place, including Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt, Neal Boortz, Mark Levin and Paul W. Smith.” During a conversation with WMAL General Manager Chris Berry, whose station features such conservative hosts as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, President Bush “smiled, patted him on the back and said, ‘Keep it up. We need you guys’."
• Quote:
  "A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles.".
  Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 4 June 1798.
• Bumper Music: Are the Good Times Really Over for Good (I Wish A Buck Was Still Silver), Merle Haggard.
• Bumper Music: The Way Life's Meant to Be, ELO.
• Tonight: Dec 14, Minneapolis MN. University of Minnesota Bookstore 7p - at Coffman Memorial Union. Show live from AM950.
• For the first time in 3 years an intelligence authorization conference bill is coming out of Congress. $43 billion, mostly classified. It blocks spending on about tree quarters of the intelligence budget until the administration briefs the House and Senate budget committees briefed on the air strike against Syria by Israel on September 6 and prohibits waterboarding, mock executions, and other torture techniques. The administration is going to veto it.
• Article: Mistrial for six in Sears Tower conspiracy case.
• Article: Bush veto death march: the saga continues. Bush has vetoed 7 bills and is threatening to veto 53 more. List.
• Bumper Music: Anything Goes, Harpers Bizarre.
• Harry Reid is showing signs of backbone, he is said to be going to keep the Senate in session over Christmas. Call and thank him for doing it for thanksgiving, encourage for Christmas. Call Congress (callcongress.org).
• Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville, 1836.
• There's a strong strain of Calvinism - the original kind - in America, with people believing that things should be run as a meritocracy instead of having a pope, by people blessed by God which is demonstrated by their being wealthy. Blame the victim mentality. It's universal, but it is in a lot of US public policy. De Tocqueville argued that a weak kingdom is a good thing, as it takes away the head of state, the person in charge because it is their heritage. Solution - look at Scandinavia.
• Bumper Music: Big Brother, Sheldon Allman.
• Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot.
• The best anti-poverty program is a good job and decent social safety net. Conservatives have historically fought against these, because they enable people to challenge the elites. The Conservative Mind. Stability, order.
• Capital gains. The rich are paying a lower tax rate.
• Atheism v. agnosticism. We are either all agnostics or delusional.
• Bumper Music: I've Always Been Crazy, Waylon Jennings.
• Article: Protester 'grannies' found not guilty. "Iraq war - A prosecutor likens five silver-haired activists to the Sept. 11 terrorists; a jury disagrees.

  The Grannies, it turns out, are part of the most recent surge in the Iraq war: sidewalk sit-ins, face-to-face debates and, in a growing number of cases across the country, all-American grandmotherhood protesting against military recruiters.

  The tactic can make life difficult for recruiters, but it's no picnic for police or prosecutors, either. Who, after all, wants to handcuff Grandma or argue a case against her to a jury?

  Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Seth Steward didn't seem to have trouble this week. In closing arguments Wednesday, he called on the six-member jury to bring back a guilty verdict to "protect our troops."

  He warned jurors to "think of some evils that could happen and why it is important for the line to be drawn here. On Sept. 11, some people drove planes into a building to prove a point. The defendants say their conduct is necessary to avoid imminent danger because people are dying in Iraq. That is the same thing suicide bombers say."

  "
• Article: Geochemists Chart Carbon-Dioxide Levels At 650,000-Year High.
• Friedman, economics, ideology.
• Campaign finance reform. Voter owned elections. Prohibition made farmers distilling alcohol to run in their vehicles illegal, which is why John Rockefeller was for it. Republicans are looking for more rich candidates like Bloomberg.
• Republicans don't mind the debt spending, it is a strategy to eliminate entitlement programs. Thom did hour on it 5 years ago, an article in the Wall Street Journal theorized about good Santa bad Santa.
• Article: Two Santa Claus Theory.
• Best of times, worst of times.
• Tariffs.
• How do you know that the world is real?
• Bumper Music: What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong. Thanks.
• Article: Reps. Wexler, Gutierrez, and Baldwin Call for Cheney Impeachment Hearings.

Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. On Sunday 60 minutes will be focusing on Don't Ask, Don't Tell and Cholene Espinoza of Talk Radio News will be on. President, continuing resolution, thinking of a year long one. He has now said he will accept a down payment on Iraq - $50 billion if there are no mandatory troop reductions, just to look like he is compromising. UN at EU in Bali may have agreed some general goals - half by 2050. Arctic ice. "Geochemists chart" article. Wexler wants to cosponsor impeachment hearings; the main stream media has no interest. Scott Stanzel in the press briefing talked about the administration issuing a statement on the policy that was passed by the house last night ending waterboarding: "But the administration does strongly oppose any legislation that would extend protections and requirements of the Army Field Manual to the CIA detention and interrogation program, because you have the Defense Department that has the Field Manual that's there to address interrogations that occur by defense personnel on the battlefield, during those conflicts in a normal battlefield setting."