• Thom Hartmann is traveling to Darfur, Sam Seder was guest host today.
• Eliot Spitzer prostitute connection. Did they investigate the person rather than the crime?
• Guest: John Gorenfeld, "Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom".
• Guest: Scott Horton. Don Siegelman, Eliot Spitzer.
• John McCain and torture.

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

Tuesday 11 March '08 National show

• Thom Hartmann is traveling to Darfur, Sam Seder was guest host today.
• Article: Revelations Began in Routine Tax Inquiry. Eliot Spitzer.
• Eliot Spitzer. Whatever he may have done wrong, there is something suspicious about how he was targeted for investigation. He has apologized. Department of Justice. New York Times coverage. Comparison with Don Siegelman. Department of Justice spending money chasing Democrats. McCain's relationship with lobbyist.
• Primary day in Mississippi. Obama expected to win.
• Guest: John Gorenfeld, author, "Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom". Moon's loss-making newspaper, the Washington Times, questionable journalism. The power that comes from owning such a media outlet. Neil Bush has been touring with Moon. He's going to put up a video at truefather.com. Orrin Hatch.
• Article: Rove heckled at University of Iowa.
  "Rove, who was paid $40,000 to speak at the university, was interrupted on several occasions by an often angry audience, CNN reported...

  Asked if he has shed a tear over the war in Iraq, President George W. Bush's former political adviser said he has. "I shed a lot of tears and I have been inspired by many of the people who feel their son or daughter should not have to die in vain," Rove was quoted as saying.

  Toward the end of his speech, one audience member shouted out, "Can we have our $40,000 back?"

  Rove replied, "No, you can't."

  "
• Article: U.S. gasoline price should hit record Tuesday: AAA. "U.S. average gasoline prices should hit an all-time peak on Tuesday and may break $4 a gallon in some areas this summer... Mass transit use hitting a 50-year high last year".
• Article: McCain Looks Ahead.
• Recession. McCain said there was very likely a recession on Friday. On Sunday on 60 Minutes he said the opposite.
• Site: The Money Masters.
• Article: The Spitzer Sex Sting: A Few More Questions, Scott Horton.
• Guest: Scott Horton, who has been following the Don Siegelman case for Harper's magazine. He writes No Comment for the magazine. The corruption of the Department of Justice. It does look like Spitzer did something wrong. But did they target him? Disturbing. They seemed to go after the person, not the crime. Spitzer has a lot of enemies. There was applause on the NYSE floor when they heard it yesterday. The proportion of Department of Justice cases that are against Democrats. "With the assistance of a confidential informant" according to the New York Times. Wiretaps. Michael Garcia in charge, Mukasey was chief judge there. Compare with Vitter. Two law enforcement officials leaked that client 9 is Spitzer.
• The FISA fight continues. New York Times, another proposal that does not include immunity.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News, along with Thom Hartmann.

  Thom: They are setting off for Darfur in a couple of hours, not giving details. Mia Farrow has pictures from Sudan on her site and an AFP article, "China admits effect of pressure over Darfur". Rusty Humphries and Joe Madison - The Black Eagle - are among the others going. Thom did relief work in Uganda. Nicholas Kristof was in the region they are going to recently; he said they were bombing aid stations so as to drive them away so as not to have witnesses to genocide. Good news about the China special representative who will be there in a week. Spitzer.

  Ellen: Budget resolution is being discussed by the House tomorrow and the next day, the Senate wants more $35 billion stimulus, the House wants to stem unemployment. Bush speech to religious broadcasters, he wants to focus on Iranians, the world is dangerous. Senior officials refused to testify for the House Armed Services Committee about signing statements. There are signing statements about a thousand provisions in laws. Kennedy, Stabenauer etc. spoke about priorities for the budget. Republicans are focusing on New York, Spitzer. Budget resolution - Byrd is in hospital, Democrats need Hillary and Obama back to vote, and Republicans want McCain. It can't pass without Hillary and Obama. Immunity, federal courts, how are they going to hear evidence. House bill to have the evidence heard by a court. Will Senate Democrats go along? It is likely to be filibustered.

• FISA, new version. Call Congress.
• Why did Scot Pelley not ask John McCain about his latest vote on torture on 60 minutes last night? McCain is a prostitute - he sold his soul to lobbyists; he provides them with legislative favors.
• Clip:
  [Pelley]: "Is waterboarding torture?"

  [McCain]: "Sure, yes, without a doubt."

  [Pelley]: "So the United States has been torturing POWs."

  [McCain]: "Yes. Scott, we prosecuted Japanese war criminals after World War II; and one of the charges brought against them, for which they were convicted, was that they waterboarded Americans."

  [Pelley]: "How did we lose our way?"

  [McCain]: "I don’t know the answer to that. I think one of the failures maybe was not to listen more to our military leadership, including people like General Colin Powell, on this issue."
  John McCain on 60 Minutes.

• Sam: "It's legal in this country apparently to pay two people for sex, videotape it and then sell it via your shell company if you're someone like Disney; they call it pornography. I don't understand why it is illegal for one person to pay another person for sex if everybody's consensual. If that industry was regulated you wouldn't have the abuses that go on. Whereas in the case of John McCain, where he gets all this funding and advice, apparently, from lobbyists, and then turns around and does them legislative favors, generally that means cash out of my pocket or it means a diminishment of my ownership of the common good, of the common property, whether it's oil companies getting cheap reduced royalties on oil they take from my land and your land, in the form of it being federal government land, or whether it's him harassing the FCC to leave open loopholes so that there can be more media concentration."
• You can only sell your integrity once, you can't get it back.