• Are we "called" by God to be good stewards of the planet or of the wealthy?
• Guest: George Landrith, President of the Frontiers of Freedom. Environment.
• Guest: Rich Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, The National Association of Evangelicals. Environment.
• Eliot Spitzer should not have resigned?
• Recordings from South Sudan.
• Guest: Marjorie Cohn. "Beware an Attack on Iran".
• Guest: Eric Alterman. "Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America".
• The Presidential campaigns.

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

Monday 24 March '08 National show

• Thanks to Peter B. Collins for guest hosting on Friday. Thom thinks he had pneumonia and malaria, and is on Doxycycline. Tomorrow Thom stops taking malaria medications. He thinks it began with a bug he and Louise got on the cruise. He hopes to be fit for Missoula on Friday.
• Are we "called" by God to be good stewards of the planet or of the wealthy?
• Guest: George Landrith, President of the Frontiers of Freedom, a conservative public policy think tank: "The Center for Free Market Environmentalism and Conservation is dedicated to promoting clean air, water, and soil by championing property rights and free market solutions and combating the misinformation of extreme environmentalists with sound science, thoughtful research, cost benefit analysis, and sensible market solutions". They urged congress to defeat climate change legislation, saying cap and trade has not worked in Europe. Thom said that those suffering now on New Orleans, from desertification in Africa are already paying. Why so negative?
• Bumper Music: Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males Todd Snider.
• Guest: Rich Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs, The National Association of Evangelicals. "Richard Cizik is Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals. His primary responsibilities include editing publications such as NAE Washington Insight, directing NAE's Washington Insight Briefing and Christian Student Leadership Conferences, setting its policy direction on issues before Congress, the White House, and Supreme Court, as well as serving as a national spokesman on issues of concern to evangelicals." The bible says we should be caretakers of Earth, not dominionists.
• Bumper Music: There’s No Business Like Oil Business, Smell the Hooey !
• Article: Bush to Phase Out Environment by 2009: Declares War on Prairie Dogs.
• Article: Since '01, Guarding Species Is Harder: Endangered Listings Drop Under Bush.
• Article: Halliburton plans move to Dubai.
• Quote:
  "saying:
  "We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.

  The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great — and for destroying those who destroy the earth".

  "
  Revelation 11:17-18. (New International Version)
• Global cooling. Has the glacier ice melting cooled the sea?
• The largest water aquifer in the hemisphere is said to be under Paraguay land bought by the Bush family.
• Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama. Thom watched him and Obama in Portland on TV. At some time soon adults have to step in and stop the campaigns destroying the party.
• Bumper Music: Royally Oily, Colleen Kattau.
• The mayor of Detroit is holding a press conference about charges of perjury.
• Article: Spitzer Miami tryst alleged.
  "Almost four months before Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned in a sex scandal, a lawyer for Republican political operative Roger Stone sent a letter to the FBI alleging that Spitzer ''used the services of high-priced call girls'' while in Florida.

  The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Miami Beach resident Stone learned the information from ''a social contact in an adult-themed club.'' It offered one potentially identifying detail: The man in question hadn't taken off his calf-length black socks ``during the sex act.''

  Stone, known for shutting down the 2000 presidential election recount effort in Miami-Dade County, is a longtime Spitzer nemesis whose political experience ranges from the Nixon White House to Al Sharpton's presidential campaign. His lawyer wrote the letter containing the call-girl allegations after FBI agents had asked to speak to Stone, though he says the FBI did not specify why he was contacted.

  "
• Eliot Spitzer should not have resigned?
• A commentator said he was enjoying the race going on and on; Thom cringed. The electoral chances of the Democratic Party are declining daily. The Hillary campaign strategy. If the tables were turned, and she was ahead, there would be a loud hue and cry for Obama to pull out, but Hillary is a Clinton. Thom would still support either.
• Recording of people in the the Gok Machar community in South Sudan singing in Dinka at night; Thom's son Justin recorded it. There was a lot to love about that trip.
• Recording of the story of county commissioner Monica in South Sudan, who had lost all her family. One of the returned slaves was her uncle who was taken when she was 7.
• "According to Merrill Lynch, at the end of 2007, “36 percent of consumers’ disposable income went to food, energy and medical care, a bigger chunk of income than at any time since records were first kept in 1960.”"
  ThinkFast, March 24, 2008.
• "Health-care costs are “whacking away” at the wages of working class Americans. Premiums for family health coverage have increased 78 percent since 2001. “Even though workers are producing more, inflation-adjusted median family income has dipped 2.6 percent — or nearly $1,000 annually since 2000.”"
  ThinkFast, March 24, 2008.
• "“[E]vidence from nonprofit credit and mortgage counselors suggests that the number of people using these so-called ‘pay day loans’ is growing…a negative sign for economic recovery.” A pay day loan “is typically for a few hundred dollars, with a term of two weeks, and an interest rate as high as 800 percent.”"
  ThinkFast, March 24, 2008.
• Article: WFP plea for $500m to avoid food aid cut. Years ago in Uganda Thom saw kids die. In Sudan he saw the same bloated bellies, orange hair. The amount they are asking for is what Bush spends in Iraq in 2 days.
• Bumper Music: War, Edwin Starr.
• 4,000 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq.
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Thom is tired of so much punditry, the Democrats and the world lose. That's why he started the show with the environment. War is the force that shaped McCain. Thom is getting loads of negative emails from Democrats about either candidate.
• Bumper Music: You Masters of War, Bob Dylan.
• Article: Beware an Attack on Iran, Marjorie Cohn.
• Guest: Marjorie Cohn. "Marjorie Cohn is president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, where she teaches criminal law and procedure, evidence, and international human rights law. She lectures throughout the world on human rights and US foreign policy." Author of "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law". "Beware an Attack on Iran" article. Fallon retiring. Bush and Cheney visiting the Middle East. McCain/Lieberman tour, McCain in Jordon saying Iran is training al Qaeda, parroting what the Bush administration say. Cuba. October surprise? 932 lies. Preempt the attack by writing, talking about it.
• Bumper Music: We Deal in Dreams, Live.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. She's glad Thom is getting better. The main focus, since Congress is out of session, is the campaigns. She was on two conference calls, one with Obama and and one with Hillary. The Hillary campaign says it is not over, there are superdelegates, other races, they think she can pull it off. General McPeak is very arrogant. He lives near Thom, has been on the morning show, seemed a decent guy. The Clinton people are after McPeak. Obama people are after Hillary. She raised money from PACs. It's getting so nasty, they are destroying each other. 4,000 US soldiers dead in Iraq. Bush meeting tomorrow with the king of Bahrain. Bahrain is trying to change financial structures to make them more Europe- and US-friendly, to take business away from UAE. The US has bases on Bahrain.
• Guest: Eric Alterman.
  "Eric Alterman is a Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is also “The Liberal Media” columnist for The Nation and a fellow of the Nation Institute, a senior fellow and “Altercation” weblogger for Media Matters for America, (formerly at MSNBC.com) in Washington, DC, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where he writes and edits the “Think Again” column, a senior fellow (since 1985) at the World Policy Institute at The New School in New York, and a history consultant to HBO Films."
  He co-authored a book with Mark Green. His new book, "Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America". The first third of the book explains what liberalism is, how it got to where it is now. The rest is about answering questions from the media. Most labels apply more to conservatives than liberals. For example, the "why do liberals hate patriotism?" chapter. One big problem that liberalism has is that it is a little bit difficult to define, and conservatism is rather easy to define, though conservatives tend to ignore what conservatism is when they get into power. But what liberalism means to him is the legacy of the Enlightenment; the right of everyone to follow their own conscience, to do what they believe in, to become who they want to be and to not worry about what God says or the king says or the church says or the dictatorship of the proletariat says or the fatherland says. Conservatives actually increase the size of government. Judicial activism. Abused military. He will be in Portland Thursday 27th, and touring other cities where people can hear Thom on the air.
• Article: Tokyo says US should use public funds.
• Article: Securities estimates revealed in court.
• Bumper Music: Back To Life (however Do You Want Me), Soul II Soul (video).
• Article: Carrington asks for $200m to replace bank loans.
• The Glass Steagall Act.
• The saying that has it if you owe the bank a million dollars, you have a problem but if you owe the bank a billion dollars, the bank has a problem - or a variation thereof. "Too big to fail".
• Bumper Music: Your Wall's Too High, Steppenwolf.
• Bumper Music: Lives in the Balance, Jackson Browne (video).
• Article: Cheney On 4,000 Troop Deaths In Iraq: ‘The President Carries The Biggest Burden, Obviously’. Sociopath.
• John Edwards was Thom's favorite but he did not endorse him. Thom is leaning towards Obama, but if Hillary manages to win maybe she should be the one to go up against McCain.
• It is a good thing that democracy is messy.
• The Republicans are doing everything they can to portray Obama as "the black guy", using Reverend Wright. They will focus on Hillary being a woman. Wright was not against America; he was a marine. It's really important that now these candidates be portraying themselves in ways that wrap them in the issues so that when the republicans come with these below the belt attacks, people go, "ah, come on, I heard that stuff before, but I know that Hillary actually stands for A, B and C or Barack Obama stands for A, B and C" and the voters can get beyond that. And that's what's not happening right now, and it's a tragedy.
• Bumper Music: You've Got To Stand For Something, Aaron Tippin.
• Clip:
  [George Stephanopoulos]: "Now as you point out, the surge has not yielded all the political progress that everybody wanted, but clearly there have been fewer American casualties and the massacres have ended. You were wrong about that, weren’t you?"

  [Chuck Hagel]: "No, I wasn’t wrong about that. We’ve lost over 900 dead Americans since the surge. Now if you want to dismiss that as “success,” that’ll be your interpretation. The fact is, in the end, all that matters is not a military tactical victory. Of course, when you flood the zone with American firepower, which is superior to anything in the world, we have the best soldiers, the best led, the best equipped (Nicole: the best equipped?) …."

  [George Stephanopoulos]: "But you didn’t think that would work at the time."

  [Chuck Hagel]: "That’s not what I said. That’s not what I said. I said what you will do is you will further bog yourselves down in a situation, making the Iraqis more dependent on you, making it more difficult to get out. In the end, you’re not going to be any closer to a political reconciliation. If all this is working so well, George, then why are the Bush administration now talking about keeping brigades in there at 140,000, larger than what we had when the surge started? Why did Gen. Petraeus say last week—Gen. Petraeus—that there has not been commensurate political progress? That in the end is all that’s going to matter anyway. What the surge was all about, George, was trying to buy time for the Iraqis. They’ve not used that time very well. There’s no question, just like taking Saddam Hussein out, we were going to do that, we were going to do that probably dispatch him pretty quickly. That was never the issue. The issue is what happens after he’s gone."
  This Week: Chuck Hagel Says The Surge Isn’t Working.

• Thom gave $100 to Obama after hearing his speech. He is waiting for Hillary to give a speech that inspires him to do the same for her.