• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont.
• Stephen Colbert on the latest Democratic debate.
• Bernie will be on the Colbert report on Monday.
• It's the anniversary of Paul Revere's ride.

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

Friday 18 April '08 show

• Clip:
  "Last night was the Pennsylvania Democratic debate on ABC. It was the most exciting verbal sparring held in Philadelphia since Ben Franklin haggled with an 18th century pimp. The night was a huge success. To begin with, for moderator, ABC courageously chose George Stephanopoulos, who owes his career to the fact that he was Bill Clinton’s Communications Director. So he was objective, in the sense that everyone knew his bias. Listen to how he went after Sen. Clinton about a conversation where she said Obama couldn’t win the general election.

  I’m not going to ask about that conversation; I know you don’t want to talk about it.

  She doesn’t want to talk about it. Enough said. Let’s move on. Besides, it would have taken away time from asking Obama this:

  Do you think Rev. Wright loves America as much as you do?

  He followed up with the equally pressing question “Could God create a rock so heavy that He Himself could not know you’re a secret Muslim?”

  "
  Stephen Colbert “praises” ABC for a great debate.
• Clip:
  [Colbert]: "I enjoyed the debate last night, though I have to take issue with you calling some of the questions 'manufactured political distractions'."

  [Obama]: "Well Stephen, I think the American people are tired of these games and petty distractions."

  [Colbert]: "Well sir, speaking for the news media, sir, speaking for the news media, I can tell you we are not tired of it. It allows us to ask the same questions over and over again and we don't do any more work."
  Colbert Report.

• Book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins.
• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont. Colbert clips. Bernie will be on Colbert on Monday night. McCain will become president if corporate media carries on like that. Republicans have nothing to say about the issues. It's good that the American people gave a very clear message to ABC. Not one reporter has ever asked Bernie about childhood poverty or wealth inequality. Decline of the network news, newspapers, the don't have the staff. Polls and gossip are easier and cheaper. Programming in the public interest. PBS Frontline: Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan, etc. looking at health care systems. Longevity, infant mortality rate. Government privatization. Figures for how many losing homes in other countries because of health care? None. Also there's the cost to employers, so they cannot invest in other stuff. Would Obama or Clinton be better for the environment? As independent not involved in race, he would strongly support either, their policies are fairly close together, moderate to liberal Democrat, not as progressive as he would like. He is on the Energy Committee with Hillary, she is quite strong. Green jobs programme. We can create jobs, either would be big change. Draft? Mercenaries would quell protests? Bush has not paid for the war, and not had a draft, one would be a big mistake. The White House discussed torture, Bush approved. Is anybody in congress speaking out, acting? Yes. Conyers hearings. Legislation has come up. Bringing the troops home. Huge new contracts for corporations in Iraq. Mercenary force. Are we bringing them home? No bid contracts. Half of the discretionary budget is for other military. Waste and fraud in all agencies of government. Single payer health care. Physicians for a National Health Program. Thom gave a keynote speech 5 years ago. What can we do? Break out of behavior, reach out to others: "can we do better than we are doing? let's discuss it". Get people to register to vote who might not otherwise vote.
• Bumper Music: Time Has Come, David James.
• Bumper Music: Mother Freedom, Bread.
• Bumper Music: Somebody, Eagles.
• Petition: "Enough Distractions ". Tom signed it and gave MoveOn $25.
• Thom's radio career, history of radio, the Fairness Doctrine. He would not want to bring back equal time, as it caused them to avoid politics.
• Clip:
  "So I want you to get up now. I want you to get out of your chairs and go to the window. Right now. I want you to go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell. I want you to yell: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!"
  "Howard Beale", played by Peter Finch, in the movie "Network" (1976).
• Article: Clinton-Obama Debate -- ABC Slammed for Focus on 'Trivial' Issues.
• Bumper Music: Anything Goes, Harpers Bizarre.
• Article: An Earthquake Rattles the Midwest.
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Article: Nuclear Fueled Explosion Reported In US Midwest.
• Clip:
  "You've got to kill the terrorists before the killing stops and I am for the President — chase them all over the world, if it takes ten years, blow them all away in the name of the Lord."
  Jerry Falwell, CNN Late Edition, 24 October 2004.
• Quote: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
  Preamble of the Constitution of the United States.
• Clip: "The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

  What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important. Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation.

  The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade -- a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.

  "
  Jimmy Carter televised "Crisis of Confidence" Speech on July 15, 1979.
• 
  Leonardo DiCaprio's movie "The 11th Hour"
• German solar panel scheme.
• Earth day events tomorrow.
• Bumper Music: In the Air Tonight, Phil Collins (video).
• Article: Hillary Clinton On Southern Working Class Whites In 1995: "Screw 'Em", April 16, 2008.
• Bumper Music: Lawless Avenues, Jackson Browne.
• Quote:
  "Listen my children and you shall hear
  Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
  On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
  Hardly a man is now alive
  Who remembers that famous day and year...

  So through the night rode Paul Revere;
  And so through the night went his cry of alarm
  To every Middlesex village and farm,---
  A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
  A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
  And a word that shall echo for evermore!
  For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
  Through all our history, to the last,
  In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
  The people will waken and listen to hear
  The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
  And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

  "
  Paul Revere's Ride. It's the anniversary.
• Clip: Montage of Bush's "Be afraid" phrases in an RNC speech.
• Bumper Music: What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong. Thanks.
• Quote:
  "The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer."

  From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.

  "
  University of Chicago Law School.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. The Republicans' new web video "The Pelosi Premium" about gas prices deserves a chutzpa award. The University of Chicago web site says Obama says he was a professor. Obama was endorsed by former senator Sam Nunn and Robert Reich - Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor. Bush introduced the new HUD secretary, Alphonso Jackson was there and Bush said, “I know him well, he's a decent man, a dedicated man and he's a compassionate man.” Trade deal with South Korea, they have lifted their American beef input ban. The National Society of Manufacturers tried to get enforcement of a 2007 lobbying disclosure law delayed. They have 11,000 members. Bush said he saw the slowdown coming, package, wants tax relief to be permanent.