• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont.
• Guest: Medea Benjamin, Code Pink, just back from Jordan and Syria where she spoke with Iraqi mothers.
• Farm subsidies. "Columbia Dies over Texas". The goddess Columbia".
• Guest: U.S. Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ, 12th District). His recent trip to Iraq.

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

Friday 09 May '08 show

• In the winter ratings, Thom beat Rush Limbaugh in Portland even though 3 out of 5 counties voted for Bush.
• 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.
• "Brunch with Bernie" with Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont. Gas prices. Windfall tax, $400m that the head of Occidental head got, etc. Tuesday Senate, discussing stopping adding to the oil reserves. How we can get off oil. Jimmy Carter on energy. Mortgage bailout. Developers made huge profits. Help should let people stay in homes. The Senate bill he voted for was not good. Supporting truckers. Private jets fuel tax surcharge. Road taxes for private land yachts? Reel in the corporate takeover of the American lifestyle. Class warfare. Will the Uniting Families Act going to pass? Binational gay couples. Bernie did not know but it makes sense to him. Diesel fuel sent to Mexico. Multi prong plan. Why no ban of electronic voting machines? Some states are taking stronger action. 6 states are going to have no paper trail. Orphan works copyright. Fewer book stores, publishers make it harder for the little guy. Copyright law. Prescription drugs, generic. Tyranny of the minority in the Senate. There is a lot more we have in common than separates us. Vermont is rural but not does not have conservative representatives. Missoula. North Dakota. We need people talking progressive interviews, candidates prepared to stand up. Senate filibuster, cloture. Windfall Profit tax and rebate. Manhattan project for replacement vehicle engine? There are already prototypes out there, he's driven some. Bill to call corporations non-persons? Unequal Protection. Ralph Nader quoted it yesterday. The profits Iraq is making from oil are not paying for the war.
• Bumper Music: 5 O’clock World, The Vogues.
• Bumper Music: Hold on tight to your dreams, ELO.
• Article: Code Pink Protesters Try Witchcraft at Anti-Marine Rallies.
• Guest: Medea Benjamin, Code Pink, just back from Jordan and Syria where she spoke with Iraqi mothers. They are trying witchcraft. They got almost no media coverage for serious stuff including Amnesty International and Iraqi refugees, so they are trying street theater and the media are all over it. She and Thom were at the last Green Festival, and both will be at the next one in Chicago later this month. Global Exchange. Yesterday they went to a fundraiser for Hillary, they are upset with her "obliterate Iran" message. They just walked in with their banner. They are on the Hill every day, funding, took a rolling bed, portraying Nancy in bed with Bush to fund the war. It is Mothers Day the day after tomorrow. She spoke to a woman who worked for the US on the Democracy program reaching out to women in Iraq, was targeted by militia, but was not welcomed by the USA. One Iraqi refugee who's husband and 4 yr old daughter were killed by militia because he was an interpreter for the U.S. is now in the USA. The US has taken in less than 5 thousand Iraqi refugees, yet has created the second largest refugee crisis in the world after Darfur (if not the largest). Iraqi girls are forced to work in Syrian brothels as in Syria Iraqi refugees are not allowed to work legally. The "Collateral Repair Project" that works with women helping them with small income projects and donating to the poorest. Donate in your mothers name. The majority of refugees are women and children, who have suffered some loss.
• "Anything Goes" Friday.
• Gender justice. The word sex is more potent. Sex is biological, gender is grammatical.
• If charges not brought, can the Bush administration be pardoned? Thom expects Bush to pardon them; he does not have to describe what crimes he is pardoning. Ford did it with Nixon. The Democrats are wrong not to use impeachment.
• Bumper Music: I've Always Been Crazy, Waylon Jennings.
• Article: Bill Clinton Switches to Obama Latest Superdelegate Defection for Hillary.
• Farm subsidies. When the space shuttle disintegrated over Texas, there was a farm subsidy for those who found pieces. Thom the story of how, when he was immersed in Jefferson research, he saw the headline "Columbia Dies over Texas" he at first thought Bush had somehow killed the Goddess of America. He told how Columbia became the Goddess of America. She's on top of the Capitol building, and with scales as the Lady Liberty that John Ashcroft covered over. Why DC has no representatives.
• Boycott for gas prices? Will not work as they know people will simply buy on another day. We need to reduce dependency. We are addicted worse than heroin addicts because we kill people. Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Use less fuel. Manhattan project for renewable sources. Urban pollution.
• Bumper Music: We've Got To Get Out Of This Place, The Animals.
• Article: Right jostles for jobs in new Berlusconi government.
  "Silvio Berlusconi put the finishing touches to his cabinet line-up on Wednesday before being sworn in later this week as the head of what could be Italy's most right-wing government since World War Two.

  The media mogul held last-minute negotiations with his main allies from the National Alliance (AN), a party with fascist roots, and the vehemently anti-immigrant Northern League over how many cabinet posts they should receive.

  "
• Thom's Hungry Ghosts story. We have lost our rituals, all we have is stuff. What we have is the Cartesian school of "I think therefore I am" which splits us into the sacred and the profane. Emptiness. People are trying to reconnect with the Earth, all life. There are mystics who reach beyond that - this moment is sacred, all life is sacred.
• Film: John Adams, HBO.
• Book: John Adams, David McCullough.
• Book: Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History by Fawn McKay Brodie.
• History of Federalists, Whigs, Republican Party, Democratic Party, Adams, Jefferson, how David McCullough trashed Jefferson. History.
• Article: Bill Moyers, April 11, 2008. Farm policy.
• Marin Civic Center, San Rafael. Frank Lloyd Wright.
• Upcoming Event: May 16, Darien, Chicago, Il. 7pm. Talk and book signing at Frugal Muse bookstore.
• Upcoming Event: May 17, Chicago, Il. Chicago Green Festival. He'll be at the WCPT Booth from 11am - 1pm and speaks to the crowd at 1pm. He'll sign his new book directly after.
• Bumper Music: Walk Tall, John Mellencamp.
• Guest: U.S. Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ, 12th District). His recent trip to Iraq. He's a scientist. It was impressive to see the soldiers. They get real time intelligence. Not so good big picture. He spent over an hour with Petraeus and Crocker. They tell a good story, not just happy talk. Petraeus is very smart, has charts and graphs of progress. But it's only progress if you continuously redefine the term. Thom's story of his dad occupying Japan. Charlie Wilson's war. Reconstruction. Not time for a Marshall plan? Iraq oil revenue. Petraeus had a chart showing fewer AQI - al Qaeda in Iraq - but there were none before we went in, and they are Sunni Iraqis who became insurgents then al Qaeda then militias, then "awakening force". Some are from outside the country. On return he was to speak to a vets group, many from World War II and he told them they would not recognize this war - not only because it is high tech, but because we used to know what success was, who the enemy was. Voting. There will be states with no paper trial in November. He had had legislation in committee that was OK'd, then Bush said no and the Republicans turned against it.
• Bumper Music: What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong. Thanks.
• Victoria Jones of Talk Radio News. Oil topped $126, $3.27 for regular gas officially - more in most places. Carter "solar bank" clip. Reagan took the solar panels off the White House, shut down programs. Yesterday, Senate passed FISA bill with immunity. Telecomms have been telling Democrats how to provide immunity, coming up with compromise. Email from Jay Rockefeller, needs contributions for re-election. Huffington Post is reporting that Obama has more superdelegates. DC thinks this is the beginning of the end, Hillary can't catch up with superdelegates, unlikely that a lot will switch to her. Ted Kennedy is saying that she won't be Vice President. Thom wants her to be leader of the Senate instead of Harry Reid. She needs to be gracious, clean.