Tuesday 21 April '09 show

• Don't let up on Attorney General Holder, call about Leura Canary, the Don Siegelman case. (202) 514-2001. Call Congress.
• There will be a daily prize for the best best blog, post, caller, comment in the chat room, best audio or video uploaded. It's all free.
• Article: Spain’s Falling Prices Fuel Deflation Fears in Europe.
  "Faced with plunging orders, merchants across this recession-wracked country are starting to do something that many of them have never done: cut retail prices.

  Prices dipped everywhere, from restaurants and fashion retailers to pharmacies and supermarkets in March. Hoping to increase sales, Fernando Maestre reduced prices by a third on the video intercoms his company makes for homes and apartment buildings. But that has not helped, so, along with many other Spanish employers, he is continuing to fire workers.

  The nation’s jobless rate, already a painful 15.5 percent, could soon reach 20 percent, a troubling number for a major industrialized country.

  "
• Article: Geithner Testimony On TARP Funds (LIVE VIDEO). Geithner Admits Banks Aren't Lending Enough.
• Article: Pressure Grows to Investigate Interrogations.
  "Senator Diane Feinstein, a California Democrat and chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, wrote Mr. Obama asking him not to rule out prosecutions until her panel completed an investigation over the next six to eight months. Call Feingold and say thanks."
• Article: Major scandal erupts involving Rep. Jane Harman, Alberto Gonzales and AIPAC.
• Jane Harmon. What were they doing listening in? Was it a blackmail attempt?
• Article: Whistleblower: NSA Targeted Journalists, Snooped on All U.S. Communications, January 22, 2009.
• Amendment IV
  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Espionage Act.
  Constitution of the United States
• Article: Does Gen. Hayden Know What the Fourth Amendment Says?.
  "Landay: “…the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to violate an American’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures…”

  Hayden: “No, actually - the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.”

  Landay: “But the –”

  Hayden: “That’s what it says.”

  Landay: “The legal measure is probable cause, it says.”

  Hayden: “The Amendment says: unreasonable search and seizure.”

  Landay: “But does it not say ‘probable cause’?”

  Hayden: “No! The Amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.”

  Landay: “The legal standard is probable cause, General — “

  Hayden: “Just to be very clear … okay… and believe me, if there’s any Amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it’s the Fourth. All right? And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional standard is ‘reasonable’”

  "
• Bumper Music: Simply The Best, Tina Turner (video).
• Article: Of Black Holes and Radio Silence, Elizabeth de la Vega.
• Caught you doing something right:
  McCain On Mohammed Waterboarding: 'It's Unacceptable...It's Unacceptable' (VIDEO).
  Diane Feinstein wrote to Obama, said not to rule out prosecutions until her panel has completed its investigation.
  Elizabeth de la Vega's article: don't appoint a special prosecutor yet.
• Article: Obama open to prosecution, probe of interrogations.
• Bumper Music: What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy), Information Society.
• Article: Boehner: It’s ‘Almost Comical’ To Say Carbon Dioxide And Climate Change Are Dangerous Since Cows Fart A Lot .
  STEPHANOPOULOS: "So what is the responsible way? That's my question. What is the Republican plan to deal with carbon emissions, which every major scientific organization has said is contributing to climate change?"

  BOEHNER: "George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide."

  STEPHANOPOULOS: "So you don't believe that greenhouse gases are a problem in creating climate change?"

  BOEHNER: "... we've had climate change over the last 100 years -- listen, it's clear we've had change in our climate. The question is how much does man have to do with it, and what is the proper way to deal with this? We can't do it alone as one nation. If we got India, China and other industrialized countries not working with us, all we're going to do is ship millions of American jobs overseas. "

• Guest: Marlo Lewis, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
  

  Energy Secretary Stephen Chu may regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. John Boehner. Carbon dioxide causes cancer? The CEI thinks regulating carbon dioxide will be a very bad thing for the economy.

• Bumper Music: Into The Ocean, Blue October.
• Article: Global Warming Study: Nations Need to Cut Emissions by 70 Percent.
  "The study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will be published in Geophysical Research Letters. It was funded by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, NCAR's sponsor.

  "This research indicates that we can no longer avoid significant warming during this century," said NCAR scientist Warren Washington, the lead author for the study. However, a catastrophe can be avoided if the world implements the recommended emission cuts of 70 percent, he said.

  "
• Solar does not need to come down in price to be viable. Passive solar. Heat exchange. Deserts expanding, might be more skin cancer there.
• Bumper Music: Drivin' My Life Away, Eddie Rabbit.
• Bumper Music: I'm A Nazi, Rush Limbaugh / WNNX-FM (Atlanta, GA) (video).
• Article from Friday: Rep. Todd Tiahrt: Rush Limbaugh "Just An Entertainer". Thom wondered how long before he backtracked? I'm Sorry, Rush.
• Article: Rep. Tiahrt Backtracks, Bows Down: Limbaugh ‘Is A Great Leader Of The Conservative Movement’.
• Article: UN sounds warning after Antarctica ice shelf rips.
• Thom interviewed scientists for "Threshold". We're not seeing it as bad as it is because the oceans have been absorbing a lot which makes them more acid which prevent sea life with exoskeletons, and the oceans may be reaching the limit of what they can absorb. The CO2 that is naturally cycled, for example what we exhale, vs. the CO2 which we have brought out from underground, for example coal.
• CO2, water vapor, methane. Remove animal products from diet; we don't need them. Bad winters in the 60s, they spoke of the coming ice age, so skepticism. Earlier warm periods. Greenland, which had some green on coast at the time, but it was local warming due to warm ocean water going further north.
• Bumper Music: Come On In, Brad Paisley (video).
• Article: Senator Kennedy Shouldn't Give In To HMO Demands.
  "Consumer Watchdog wrote a letter to U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) urging that he continue to protect patients consistent with the principles he has articulated during his 40 year career by demanding a strong public health plan in the Senate’s health care overhaul and resisting mandatory purchase of private insurance policies."
• Guest: Carmen Balber, Consumer Advocate, Consumer Watchdog. Their letter to U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy about health care. Story that if there was not a public option in the forthcoming health insurance legislation, the Obama administration says it will be a no go? Conflicting messages from the Obama administration.
• Article: Bill Allows Obama Power to Shut Down Internet.
• Amendment IV, Constitution of the United States
  

  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Espionage Act.

• Amendment V, Constitution of the United States
  

  No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

• Amendment XIV, Section 1, Constitution of the United States
  

  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws...

• Guest: Brad O’Leary, President of ATI News; Chairman of the Board of PM Marketing, publisher of The O'Leary Report. Author of 11 books including "The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values". His new book, "Shut up America: The End of Free Speech". The bill allowing the president to shut down the Internet is going nowhere like H.R. 45. Campaign finance law. Corporate personhood. 4th, 5th, 14th amendments.
• Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, 1886 - corporate personhood. The court did not actually rule that corporations are persons; the head note was wrong, but at least 37 cases have quoted it. Thom found a copy of a book by Delphin Delmas, attorney for Santa Clara. Delphin Delmas argued the case pro bono to save the last redwoods in California. About Santa Clara, he said the railroads were claiming that they should have the rights of persons under the constitution. It had never been the case. The word corporation does not exist in the constitution and for damned good reason: the founders did not want corporations to have power. They wanted them to only be incorporated at the state level where they could be kept on a very tight leash. "To my mind, the fallacy, if I may be permitted so to term it, of the argument lies in the assumption that corporations are entitled to be governed by the laws that are applicable to natural persons. That, it is said, results from the fact that corporations are [artificial] persons, and that the last clause of the Fourteenth Amendment refers to all persons without distinction. ...

  When the law says, ‘Any person being of sound mind and of the age of discretion may make a will,’ or ‘any person having arrived at the age of majority may marry,’ I presume the most ardent advocate of equality of protection would hardly contend that corporations must enjoy the right of testamentary disposition or of contracting matrimony.

  "
• Book: Unequal Protection, Thom Hartmann. (excerpt)
  

• No corporation doing business in this state shall pay or contribute, or offer consent or agree to pay or contribute, directly or indirectly, any money, property, free service of its officers or employees or thing of value to any political party, organization, committee or individual for any political purpose whatsoever, or for the purpose of influencing legislation of any kind, or to promote or defeat the candidacy of any person for nomination, appointment or election to any political office.

  Penalty: any officer, employee, agent or attorney or other representative of any corporation, acting for and in behalf of such corporation who shall violate this act shall be punished upon conviction by a fine of not less than 100 nor more than 5,000 dollars and by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of not less than one nor more than five years.

  Old Wisconsin Law. A domestic (in-state) corporation could also be dissolved and the right of a non-resident corporation to do do business in the state may be declared forfeit. Nike claimed first amendment rights. Dow Chemical claiming privacy. Tobacco. Wal-Mart discrimination.

• Bumper Music: Me And My Gang, Rascal Flatts.
• Bumper Music: You can leave your hat on, Randy Newman.
• Article: Berlusconi and his new golden girl are laid bare.
• Article: Confirmed: Rep. Jane Harman Tried to Kill NSA Wiretapping Story -- May Have Swayed 2004 Election.
• Bumper Music: I love, Tom T. Hall.
• Article: Justices hear arguments over school strip search.
  "The Supreme Court seemed worried Tuesday about tying the hands of school officials looking for drugs and weapons on campus as they wrestled with the appropriateness of a strip-search of a 13-year-old girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen."
• Jay Tamboli, Talk Radio News. He was at the Supreme Court. One decision and one case hearing involved the 4th amendment; unreasonable searches and seizures. Arizona v. Gant, the police had arrested a man when he was out of his car, yet the police searched the car. You can only search what is within their reach, reversing a 1981 ruling, New York v. Belton. Stare decisis. Strip search of 8th grader, for legal drugs she had shared - heard today, ruling in about a month. The Craigs List killer is a member of the young Republicans. CIA interrogation memos - the president may be open to investigation, prosecution of those who wrote the memos, or did worse than they were told was legal.