• Guest: Carrie Lukas, Independent Women's Forum. Should women rule the world?
• Hillary Clinton was on Bill O'Reilly's show.
• "Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican", John Gray.
• Guest: Former U.S. Border Patrol Officer Zack Taylor, National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.
• Should we use the 5th anniversary of "Mission Accomplished" to investigate the Bush Administration war crimes?
• Guest: Christy Harvey, Center for American Progress, "News Under the Radar".

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

Thursday 01 May '08 show

• Hillary was on O'Reilly. She met a steel worker who spoke of "testicular fortitude"
• Article: We’ll never know how women would run the world.
• Article: Don't Use Women To Justify Bad Economic Policy, Carrie Lukas.
• Guest: Carrie Lukas, Vice President for Policy and Economics, Independent Women's Forum. Author, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism". Should women rule the world? "We’ll never know how women would run the world" article. large percentage of men in prison. Testosterone. 41% of representatives in Scandinavia are women, 9.6% in the Arab world.
• Bumper Music: My Conservative Girlfriend, Roy Zimmerman.
• Article: Spain absorbing shock over new, pregnant defense minister.
• Clip:
  [Bill O'Reilly]: "You know, your husband and I make a lot of money. Did you know that?"

  [Hillary Clinton]: "I've heard that."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "Yes, we make a lot of money. And you, if you're president, are going to take more of my money and your husband's money away."
  Hillary Clinton Sits Down With Bill O'Reilly, April 30, 2008.

• Last night Hillary handed O'Reilly his head. HIS money? Also his national debt. He's used the commons. 7/11 candy bar analogy. He makes money from his staff who use the commons. The wealth become wealthy by taking some off the top of other people's labor. Even if their kids are educated privately, they will use people who were educated publicly. He and they breathe fresh air, drink public water. So the wealthy's benefit from the commons is massively greater than average. They use the court and banking systems to keep that wealth. Yet capital gains and dividends tax are lower rates. Go back to Eisenhower's tax rates. Thom thinks Hillary comported herself very well, but he doesn't think she should have been on the show.
• Bumper Music: I've Always Been Crazy, Waylon Jennings.
• Article: Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican, John Gray.
• Clip:
  [Bill O'Reilly]: "Yes, we make a lot of money. And you, if you're president, are going to take more of my money and your husband's money away."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "I'm going up to what we had in the 1990s..."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "39.5, all right."

  [Hillary Clinton]: " ...36, 39. People..."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "All right. So I'm getting a 6.5 percent bump, and so is Bill Clinton."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "Well, it's only for the people making more than $250,000."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "No, that's me. That's me. You're talking to him."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "I know."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "OK. All right. All right."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "And I am very happy..."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "So 6.5 percent…"

  [Hillary Clinton]: "...that you're going to pay more..."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "I know you are."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "...so that we can cut middle-class taxes..."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "Fine."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "....on people who get up every day..."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "I'm a generous guy."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "...and do hard work to keep our country going."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "But before I vote for you, I want to know exactly how much you're going to take out of my wallet, all right?"

  [Hillary Clinton]: "I'm going to take..."

  [Bill O'Reilly]: "So you got 6.5..."

  [Hillary Clinton]: "...as much as you were paying in the '90s. And as I recall, you did pretty well in the '90s."
  Hillary Clinton Sits Down With Bill O'Reilly, April 30, 2008.

• Bumper Music: Lawless Avenues, Jackson Browne.
• Article: A Day in the Life of a True Conservative.
• The Democratic National Convention pool feed will be provided by Fox.
• Book: "The Chalice and the Blade", Riane Eisler.
• Testosterone.
• The illegal immigration issue will come back.
• Article: Ricardo's "On labor" 1814, "On profits" 1816.
• Guest: Former U.S. Border Patrol Officer Zack Taylor, National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers. Is it worth killing jaguars to keep the "brown people" out? Arizona has dealt with it by penalizing employers. Testimony. There were referendums on the ballot, and it got an 84% nod although it was not expected to pass. Big corporations were recruiting people in Mexico in mid 90s (he retired in '03) and presumably are still. It cut down on the lag getting labor. Ricardo "On Labor". The improved ability of people to travel; the Central American and USA transport systems have improved. Designating the border as a wildlife area and giving the border control horses would not work; the bad men would come in and trash the area. You can't fly choppers over wilderness areas without waivers according to the Act. It doesn't even allow a bike. It depends on how strictly it is enforced. In Arizona there is a problem, horse droppings spread invasive grasses. "Rape trees" - bandits waylay immigrants, rape the women, hang up their underwear on trees to mark the area.
• Bumper Music: Do Ya, Electric Light Orchestra.
• Thom is in favor of legal immigration, expanding it. The policies are terrible. We should allow far more Iraqis in and people from China and other places. It's an illegal employer problem. When Reagan came in, 25% were in unions. and for each union job, another matched the conditions because they had to compete. Now 7% are in unions. Reagan amnesty for illegals. The situation is cruel on spouses, kids. We need reasonable national positive solutions. Card Check, Employee Rights Act, a Labor Department working for labor. There's a billion dollar industry to keeping unions out.
• Bumper Music: We've Got To Get Out Of This Place, The Animals.
• Clip:
  "What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label 'Liberal?' If by 'Liberal' they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of 'Liberal.' But if by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal'." John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960, Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination.
• Quote:
  "Under the Republican Administration, as our country has prospered, so have its people. This is as it should be, for as President Eisenhower said: "Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."

  The Eisenhower Administration has brought to our people the highest employment, the highest wages and the highest standard of living ever enjoyed by any nation. Today there are nearly 67 million men and women at work in the United States, 4 million more than in 1952. Wages have increased substantially over the past 3 1/2 years; but, more important, the American wage earner today can buy more than ever before for himself and his family because his pay check has not been eaten away by rising taxes and soaring prices.

  The record of performance of the Republican Administration on behalf of our working men and women goes still further. The Federal minimum wage has been raised for more than 2 million workers. Social Security has been extended to an additional 10 million workers and the benefits raised for 6 1/2 million. The protection of unemployment insurance has been brought to 4 million additional workers. There have been increased workmen's compensation benefits for longshoremen and harbor workers, increased retirement benefits for railroad employees, and wage increases and improved welfare and pension plans for federal employees.

  In addition, the Eisenhower Administration has enforced more vigorously and effectively than ever before, the laws which protect the working standards of our people.

  Workers have benefited by the progress which has been made in carrying out the programs and principles set forth in the 1952 Republican platform. All workers have gained and unions have grown in strength and responsibility, and have increased their membership by 2 millions.

  Furthermore, the process of free collective bargaining has been strengthened by the insistence of this Administration that labor and management settle their differences at the bargaining table without the intervention of the Government. This policy has brought to our country an unprecedented period of labor-management peace and understanding...

  Republican action created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare as the first new Federal department in 40 years, to raise the continuing consideration of these problems for the first time to the highest council of Government, the President's Cabinet.... We have supported the distribution of free vaccine to protect millions of children against dreaded polio.

  Republican leadership has enlarged Federal assistance for construction of hospitals, emphasizing low-cost care of chronic diseases and the special problems of older persons, and increased Federal aid for medical care of the needy.

  We have asked the largest increase in research funds ever sought in one year to intensify attacks on cancer, mental illness, heart disease and other dread diseases.

  "
  Republican Party Platform of 1956.
• Clip:
  "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

  This world in arms is not spending money alone.

  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

  The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

  It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

  It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

  It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

  We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

  We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

  This is, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

  This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

  "

  Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 "The Chance for Peace" speech (mp3).

• The Republican Party has been taken over by crazies, not conservatives.
• Clip:
  "Eisenhower knows how to deal with the Russians. He has met Europe's leaders, has got them working with us. Elect the number one man for the number one job of our time. November 4th vote for peace. Vote for Eisenhower." 1952, 'The Man from Abilene'.
• Article: Free Yourself from Conservative Talk Radio: 12 Steps to Recovery. Thom, November 4, 2003.
• Bumper Music: Walk Tall, John Mellencamp.
• Clip:
  "There is only one real peace now, and that is peace for all time... Today we are competing for men's hearts, and minds, and trust all over the world. In such a competition, what we are at home and what we do at home is even more important than what we say abroad. Here again, my friends, we find constructive work for each of us. What each of us does, how each of us acts, has an influence on this question.

  There can be no enduring peace for any nation while other nations suffer privation, oppression, and a sense of injustice and despair. In our modern world, it is madness to suppose that there could be an island of tranquillity and prosperity in a sea of wretchedness and frustration.

  " Dwight D. Eisenhower, August 23, 1956, Republican National Convention (mp3). It was controversial; there was no real applause.
• A lot of immigrants outstayed their visas, the rest are refugees. During the Irish potato famine, Ireland exported more food to England than they could have eaten. NAFTA increased poverty in Mexico, but also created Mexico's first six billionaires. There's a chapter in Das Kapital on Ireland.
• Possible ways to spend your tax rebate to help with impeachment: Center for Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild, American Civil Liberties Union, MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Democrats for America, or pick an individual candidate. Support local folks.
• Today is May Day.
• Seattle immigration rally, longshoremen wildcat strike along the coast - they were not allowed the day off to protest Iraq. Commons.
• Should we use the 5th anniversary of "Mission Accomplished" to investigate the Bush Administration war crimes?
• "My fellow Americans: major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed"
  George W. Bush, May 1, 2003, Remarks by the President from the USS Abraham Lincoln
• It's time to impeach, if they are being impeached, they cannot pardon themselves.
• Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
  

  The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. - - ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:

  1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of over one hundred thousand Iraqis, and thousands of U.S. G.I.s.

  2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

  3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

  4) Instituting a secret and illegal wiretapping and spying operation against the people of the United States through the National Security Agency.

  5) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.

  6) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

  7) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

  8) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the "Supreme Law of the land" under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

  9) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an "enemy combatant."

  10) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.

  11) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

  12) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

  13) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.

  14) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.

  15) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.

  16) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed "terrorist."

  17) Engaging in criminal neglect in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, depriving thousands of people in Louisiana, Mississippi and other Gulf States of urgently needed support, causing mass suffering and unnecessary loss of life.

  18) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.

  19) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

  20) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.

• Clip:
  [Eric Brewer]: "The New York Times has reported that over the last -- "

  [Dana Perino]: "Definitely going to be a good question. (Laughter.) "

  [Eric Brewer]: "over the last six years the Pentagon conducted a secret operation designed to sell the war in Iraq and the war on terror to the American people. It recruited more than 75 ex-military officers, many with financial ties to the defense industry, provided them with talking points and an extraordinary degree of access not available to ordinary members of the press, including meetings with the Secretary of Defense, and it got them higher supposedly independent military analysts by every U.S. television network. One of its participants described it -- "

  [Dana Perino]: "Do you have a question?"

  [Eric Brewer]: "One of its participants described the program as "psyops on steroids" and others said that if they -- "

  [Dana Perino]: "Is this your opinion?"

  [Eric Brewer]: "I'm describing the program."

  [Dana Perino]: "What's your question?"

  [Eric Brewer]: "Others said that if they departed from the Pentagon's talking points, their access was cut off. And my question is, did the White House know about and approve of this operation? "

  [Dana Perino]: "Look, I didn't know -- look, I think that you guys should take a step back and look at this -- look, DOD has made a decision, they've decided to stop this program. But I would say that one of the things that we try to do in the administration is get information out to a variety of people so that everybody else can call them and ask their opinion about something.

  And I don't think that that should be against the law. And I think that it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of those military analysts ever agreed with the administration. I think you can go back and look and think that a lot of their analysis was pretty tough on the administration. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk to people."
  Press Briefing by Dana Perino, April 30, 2008. Eric Brewer.

• Article: More Suicide Bombers, New Tactics, More Victims. "U.S. Has Bad News on Terror War. Are we winning? Looking at the just-released State Department report on terrorism, the answer appears to be "no"."
• ""A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was traveling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission," he told the committee. "I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by a manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad.""
  Contractors Gone Wild. Dyncorp.
• Article: U.S. has Mandela on terrorist list.
  "Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls the situation "embarrassing," and some members of Congress vow to fix it."
• Guest: Christy Harvey, Director of Strategic Communications at the Center for American Progress, MicCheckradio.org. "News Under the Radar". Lots of email about DC Madam Deborah Jean Palfrey's apparent suicide. She was 50, looking at 50 years in prison, but a lot of people had a lot to lose. It's sad. The media used her, put her in the spotlight, then dumped her. 5 years ago today "Mission Accomplished". State Department report yesterday on the war on terror. ABC, "Are we winning? Suicide bombings were up 50% worldwide last year, and the number killed or wounded. Terrorists have got much more efficient. Iraq is a graduate school for them. A Dyncorp contractor was killed in an unarmored car, because the armored one was being used to fetch hookers. Other terror groups have grown. We are focusing on the wrong things, like starting Iraq, and have lost focus on more important things. Nelson Mandela is on the terror watch list. Condi was embarrassed.
• Bumper Music: Hold on tight to your dreams, ELO.
• Upcoming Event: On Saturday, May 03 2008, 17:00 - 21:00 Thom is speaking on "State of Affairs for Progressives and Hopes and Dreams" at the Annual Recognition Dinner - Coos County Dem Party, Community Center Coquille, OR.
• [Victoria Jones]: "In the new Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, only 15 percent of people think that the country is moving in the right direction, and 27 percent approve of the job that the President is doing. To what does he attribute this, and is he concerned about this? "

  [Tony Fratto]: "I don't think he was paying attention to it."

  [Victoria Jones]: "Do you think that perhaps he should? "

  [Tony Fratto]: "No."

  [Victoria Jones]: "Why?"
  Press Briefing by Tony Fratto, May 1, 2008.

• Victoria Jones of Talk Radio News. She was dissed by Tony Fratto today about a poll. Indicative of Bush's "so?" remark. Tax rebates, Don Siegelman defense fund. "Mission accomplished". McCain - don't blame Bush for the banner. Perino mentioned it yesterday. Press secretaries are made to spin; it's their role.