• Guest: Larisa Alexandrova, Raw Story. The Siegelman Story, 60 Minutes.
• Guest: Ralph Nader, exploratory committee for a 2008 presidential run.
• Guest: Matt Rothschild, Progressive Magazine. Exclusive! The FBI Deputizes Business.
• Guest: professor Peter Swire. FISA. Black Box Sensors.

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

Monday 11 February '08 National show

• Thom's back home. He flies to Reno on Thursday. On 15th he's in Reno at Borders at 5pm. On the 16th he's in Los Angeles giving a keynote for Mensa.
• Article: The permanent Republican majority: Part one: How a coterie of Republican heavyweights sent a governor to jail, November 26, 2007.
• Article: 60 Minutes Caves to Pressure from White House on Siegelman Story.
• Guest: Larisa Alexandrova, Raw Story. The Siegelman Story. CBS corporate (not "60 minutes" itself) was getting White House pressure. "The Insider" movie. There was a grass roots campaign to get "60 minutes" air it, and she found out Sunday that on Friday there was movement towards showing it. There was no investigation and the then Attorney General sealed the ballots, so they could not recount. He then received a recess appointment as federal judge. There are other victims around the country, even including Republicans, some had businesses ruined.
• Bumper Music: Attitude, the Kinks.
• Article: Where’s the Big Idea? Bob Herbert.
• Article: Damage That Must Be Undone, Eugene Robinson.
• Guest: Ralph Nader, author of "The Seventeen Traditions", attorney, former presidential candidate. He's opened an exploratory committee for a 2008 presidential run, testing the waters, to get issues of table that the others are ignoring. These include impeachment, single payer health care, a bloated military budget, repeal of Taft-Hartley Act, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, corporate crime and abuses crackdown, opening up presidential debates, nuclear power which is on the table for Hillary and Obama, consumer protection, environmental issues. Bob Herbert's article about national vision. Eugene Robinson's listed Bush's crimes but did not mention impeachment. Major civil liberties issue.

  People who are telling him not to run are basically telling him not to speak. Thom voted for him in 2000. David Cobb told people to vote for him in solidly blue states in 2004, but not in red or swing states. Thom asked if he would do what Cobb did. He said not; he would campaign in every state and let people vote for him. It would have been better if Cobb had asked the Democratic Party why it did not pick up his issues; it does not matter how much talk radio and the other media talk about them, they will go nowhere if the party pays no attention. Thom asked him if he would want to be the guy who had caused John McCain to become president. He said there was no proof in 2000.

  He would make a deep critique of McCain that the Democrats would not make, give the voters a progressive candidate to vote for. Where are the democratic rights of smaller parties? Never tell people not to run, deny their potential voters. They are exploring being affiliated with the Green Party. He said it does not matter how many marches you have, if it does not move into the political arena. If you don;t want to go for a third party, you've got to make demands on the Democrats. Don't give it a free pass because it isn't as bad as the Republican Party.

• Bumper Music: 5 O’clock World, The Vogues.
• Giovanni Gentile wrote for Benito Mussolini in the Encyclopedia Italiana that fascism was "the merger of state and corporate interests". Are we there yet?
• Article: Exclusive! The FBI Deputizes Business, Matt Rothschild.
  "Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law. InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm."
• Guest: Matt Rothschild, Progressive Magazine, author of "You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression". InfraGard are preparing for martial law. They can name you to the FBI. You have to be invited to get in. Precedents. The FBI calls Infragard the first line of defense. We need congress hearings. He loves Ralph Nader, he worked for him when he got out of college in 1980, nobody can tell Nader what to do. He's not wrong to raise the issues. Call to action - read, visit their site, contact elected officials.
• Bumper Music: Let's Roll, Dave, The Power Hour.
• Tom Lantos died last night, the only holocaust survivor to serve in Congress. Harry Reid "I am deeply saddened by the loss of Tom Lantos; one of the most honorable and admirable Americans to ever serve his country, whether standing up to fascism or standing up for families. Tom Lantos lived his life fighting for what is right. The Congress and the country will miss his courage."
• Bumper Music: Piggies, George Harrison, Beatles.
• Article: GE Money to move its HQ to London.
• Article: Subprime credit losses forecast to reach £400bn by G7 leaders.
• Article: Full impact of squeeze ‘yet to be felt’.
• Thom: "There's no such thing as a free market. The ground in which the market grows is government. Government provides the rules of the game, it provides the court system through which contracts can be enforced, it provides the police departments that ultimately can enforce a contract when necessary, it provides a stable currency. Government is the soil in which business grows. And regulation, reasonable and rational regulation; obviously there's always going to be a debate abut exactly what that means, but reasonable and rational regulation is what keeps capitalism from becoming cancerous.

  And I would submit to you that since Reagan became president, we have seen the cancer stage of capitalism coming upon us hard and heavy and fast, and this is one symptom of it; only one of many and it's time for us to turn back from that and say, "you know, John Maynard Keynes and Franklin Roosevelt really had something to teach us". There really is a role for government in making sure that we the people are protected.

  "
• John Edwards has met Hillary and Obama. No news of an endorsement.
• Article: When Democracy Failed - 2005 (video).
• The time for candidates to talk about prosecuting Bush and Cheney is between the election and inauguration.
• Bumper Music: Hello, NSA, Roy Zimmerman.
• Article: Bush Administration Plans To Install Black Box Sensors On Private-Sector Computer Networks, Peter Swire.
• Quote: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." 4th Amendment.
• Article: "Wiretap Showdown".
  "Not long ago Democrats seemed ready to move a bipartisan bill passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee last autumn. But under pressure from the anti-anti-terror left, they are now bending and will try to weaken the bill on the Senate floor. Given that the House is likely to pass something far worse, the Senate debate will determine how much the U.S. ties its own hands in the fight against terrorists.

  By far the worst threat is an amendment from Senator Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) to deny legal immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with the government on these wiretaps after 9/11. The companies face multiple lawsuits, so a denial of even retrospective immunity would certainly lead to less such cooperation in the future.

  This is precisely the goal of the left, which has failed to get Congress to ban such wiretaps directly but wants to use lawsuits to do so via the backdoor. We’re told that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are co-sponsoring the Dodd amendment, no doubt for political reasons as they compete for left-wing votes in their nomination fight. But they had better hope the effort fails, because as President they’d surely want the same telecom cooperation.

  "
• Guest: professor Peter Swire. The 4th amendment. The Supreme court has ruled that once you give your information to somebody else, they can give it to the government. Today's Wall Street Journal editorial, "Wiretap Showdown". But wiretapping began before 9/11. They called pro-constitution anti-anti-terrorism. The phone companies and government had legal ways to do it. If they broke the law, they knew it, and decided they didn't care. They must have known the consequences. Phone companies have had mergers approved, have had nice relationship with government. Bill Clinton abandoned prosecutions of the previous administration, so will it be different this time?

  Concerning the black box sensors, the companies won't know details of the hole in their security that might be hacked, or what information is being taken and there's no accountability. AT&T whistle blower. FISA suits. The Ron Paul side of Republicans are against it, but thanks to party loyalty, there were no defections on the FISA vote. John Yoo. Vote in people, apply public pressure.

• Bumper Music: Turn It Up, The Alan Parsons Project.
• Bumper Music: Let Me Take You There, Plain White Ts.
• A few tickets for Saturday's Mensa keynote speech are available through AM 1150 KTLK or call 818 766 5314.
• End Mountain Top Removal.
• Bumper Music: Business As Usual, Eagles.
• Article: Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007.
• Some of the people saying they are Democrats who will vote for McCain may be paid shills, like here have been on the board.
• Jack called and said Nader's impact in 2002 was not in Florida but New Hampshire. Nader and Gore's votes beat Bush.
• A healthy diet high in calcium and magnesium and a lot of impact exercise such as walking are good for osteoporosis.
• Scheduled for tomorrow: Dinesh D'Souza, author of "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left And Its Responsibility For 9/11" and Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the House, Ways and Means committee, to talk about the economy.