with Mary Mancini and Freddie O’Connell
Posted by Liberadio(!) on October 9, 2007 under Uncategorized | 
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Summary: Kate Blofson of Prometheus Radio joins us to give us an update on Low Power FM stations like our own Radio Free Nashville and the fight against media consolidation.
Listen to: Interview with Kate Blofson, Prometheus Radio (approx 20 minutes, 29.44MB)
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Summary: During the first hour of Monday’s show, we talk about health care. Is it a right? A privilege? Why is George Bush lying to make his veto look good? And if rights come from God, and you’re an atheist, does that mean you don’t have any rights at all? What we do know is that Phil Valentine is wrong. We do have a health-care crisis in this country and we do not the best health care on the planet.
Listen to: Health Care Is Morally a Right (approx 50 minutes, 82.77MB)
Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized | Read the First Comment
We listen in disbelief to the Commander-in-Chief who insists “this government does not torture people” and that the program he authorized to “question terrorists and extremists” was put in place “to better protect the American people.” He says there are “professionals who are trained in this kind of work to get information that will protect the American people.” He tells us that “the techniques that we use have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress.”
We read in horror the details of secret memos passed back and forth between lawyers and politicians and approved by President Bush endorsing and authorizing the use of the “harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency” including “a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.” We don’t understand the parsing of words that clearly indicate cruel and unusual punishment, violate the U.N.’s Declaration of Human Rights, and turn prisoners into “detainees” not covered by our founding documents.
But, baby, it doesn’t have to be this way. Several World War II interrogators recently broke their silence, accepting medals for their service and speaking out about their techniques and protesting our current torture policy.
When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.
Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners’ cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.
“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.
Blunt criticism of modern enemy interrogations was a common refrain at the ceremonies held beside the Potomac River near Alexandria. Across the river, President Bush defended his administration’s methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects during an Oval Office appearance.
Several of the veterans, all men in their 80s and 90s, denounced the controversial techniques. And when the time came for them to accept honors from the Army’s Freedom Team Salute, one veteran refused, citing his opposition to the war in Iraq and procedures that have been used at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
“I feel like the military is using us to say, ‘We did spooky stuff then, so it’s okay to do it now,’ ” said Arno Mayer, 81, a professor of European history at Princeton University.
When Peter Weiss, 82, went up to receive his award, he commandeered the microphone and gave his piece.
“I am deeply honored to be here, but I want to make it clear that my presence here is not in support of the current war,” said Weiss, chairman of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy and a human rights and trademark lawyer in New York City.
These men used words like “pride,” “honor,” “respect,” “humanity,” and, “justice.” They’re proud to say that during their interrogations they never laid hands on anyone using their wits to extract information instead. Forget 24. Give me a TV show based on these guys.
So, who will be the first to stand up and impugn the patriotism of these men? Who will be the first to label them irrelevant?
As for Mr. Bush’s claim that the “American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack,” you might want to also check with us, Sir, to see exaclty how we want you to do that.
Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized | Read the First Comment
I know his reason for saying it is more hubris than conviction, but this is why Rudy Giuliani will be a formidable opponent. His positions on abortion and gay rights might alienate a few fundamentalists but they won’t have much of an affect on his popularity with the majority of social conservatives and, well, most of the rest of the country agrees with him. I can hear it now, “I don’t agree with Rudy on ___________, but he stands up for what he believes in. He’s a maverick! He has my vote.”
From the London Times Online:
Peppered by questions about whether he can win the nomination as a pro-abortion candidate, Mr Giuliani said: “I cannot be all things to all people. If you disagree with me, don’t vote for me.” It was the clearest of signs that Mr Giuliani has decided to ignore social conservatives in the belief that their hold over the Republican nominating process is over.
Posted by Mary Mancini on October 7, 2007 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments to Read
The Tennessean is reporting via the AP that Rep. Lincoln Davis (D- The Fightin’ 4th) has “made up his mind” to run for Governor. And Davis, who served as Harold Ford’s campaign chairman during his unsuccessful 2006 Senate bid, is third-person confident that he won’t have any competition from HaFo:
I don’t think (Ford) is going to run because Lincoln Davis is going to run. I would imagine that if I’m in the race, he’ll step aside.
TNDP chairman Gray Sasser, is not so sure. He’s quoted as saying that Ford is “very interested in looking at it.”
And you thought 2008 was going to be interesting.
Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized | 4 Comments to Read
In today’s Tennessean, regular Sunday columnist Phil Valentine writes that “President Bush had the good sense to veto the Democrats’ dramatic increase in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.” Valentine agrees with president Bush’s reasons for his veto including “that the government has no business paying the health insurance premiums for children whose parents make as much as $80,000 per year” and “the expansion of SCHIP simply encourage more people to drop their current insurance and jump on the government gravy train.”
I’m not sure why I expected Valentine to shed his conservative shill persona in print. You would think I would know better than to believe he would refrain from using the same intellectually dishonest right-wing media echo chamber talking points that he uses on his radio show in his new gig. I guess old habits that feed your gravy train die really hard.
Please, Phil, find and then show us the part in the bill that states that the SCHIP program would insure the children of those in the $80,000 (four times the poverty level for family of 4) income bracket. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Can’t find it? Right, because it doesn’t exist. According to Congressional Quarterly, “…under current law, only the president can authorize states to use SCHIP to cover families earning $83,000, and Bush has declined to do so. The bill he vetoed would not change that procedure, and would discourage states from expanding SCHIP to families making three times the federal poverty level or more — $61,950 for a family of four.” In the reality-based community, Phil, fewer than 1 in 10 kids covered under the program live in a family of four earning more than $41,000 a year. (hat tip: tompaine.org)
This lie has been repeatedly exposed by watchdog websites like ThinkProgress and the Center for American Progress, whose health care analyst Jeanne Lambrew points out that the bill “overwhelming targets resources to low-income children and it discourages expansion to families with more moderate incomes by lowering the share the federal government will pay for such coverage.” Yet Valentine can’t help but fall in line and repeat it.
And he doesn’t stop there. Instead, he continues to raise his requisite conservative “We Are Number 1!” foam finger, insisting that the increase in SCHIP is not needed because “we do not have a health-care crisis in this country” and “We have the best health care on the planet.” But the facts say something different:
“Best healthcare on the planet?” In your manufactured reality, Valentine.
And what’s a right-wing hack’s column without at least one reference to Hillary Clinton and “the left” (make sure you spew those words out with as much venom as you can muster). This time he takes us to task for having the gall to label health care “a right.” “Rights come from God, not government,” he says, without a hint of irony. Maybe I’m wrong, but if anyone wanted human beings to be healthy and well taken care of it would be their creator, wouldn’t it? I would also argue (and I have when I get don’t get our founding documents confused) that the Preamble to the Constitution lays out the framework for health care as a right:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.
Using both our founding document’s promise to insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare as well as international standards set forth by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights as yard sticks, the U.S. health care system is a right - and a dismal failure.
It seems that Bush et al can’t win their public policy debates on merit alone so they must make up facts to support their positions. They sure are lucky to have mouthpieces like Phil Valentine to spread their lies for them.
Posted by Mary Mancini on October 4, 2007 under Uncategorized | 4 Comments to Read
Yesterday, President Bush made good on his promise to veto the expansion of the SCHIP health care program for kids. During a speech in Lancaster, PA, the president explained his reason for the veto while demonstrating his complete lack of understanding of the program:
“This program expands coverage, federal coverage, up to families earning $83,000 a year. That doesn’t sound poor to me.”
But according to Stan Dorn, a senior research associate with the Urban Institute, the new version of the program would actually prevent states from going to higher-income levels and
“SCHIP money would no longer be available over 300 percent of the federal poverty level, which is about $60,000 for a family of four.”
Beside having the details of the program wrong, Mr. Bush, from his elitist ivory-tower, once again demonstrates his complete lack of empathy and understanding of what it’s like to live in this country as a regular working Joe or Joelene.
My challenge for the president for when he leaves office is this: take $60,000 and try and support your wife and two daughters on that amount for one year. Then, and only then, can you tell us what does and doesn’t sound poor.
Posted by Mary Mancini on October 3, 2007 under Uncategorized | 6 Comments to Read
First, a disclaimer. Yes, Congress should focus on issues of greater importance like the war, health care and the ballooning deficit.
That said, how is it that Republicans were able to get numerous Democrats to sign on to and pass their resolution denouncing MoveOn’s “General Betrayus” ad (341-79 in the House, 72 to 25 in the Senate) but the Democrats could not get one Republican to hop on board their resolution denouncing Rush Limbaugh for labeling the troops who disagree with U.S. foreign policy, “phony soldiers?” Republicans continue to play Democrats like a fiddle and, out of fear, Democrats continue to play by Republican rules.
What are Democrats so afraid of? They’re afraid of appearing to be exactly what conservative radio talk show hosts and cable news pundits make them out to be. And it’s the same fear that prevents them from acting decisively to end the war in Iraq. They know they need to cut off the funding that fuels George Bush’s war but they also know that if they do, they’ll be accused loudly and repeatedly of “not supporting the troops.” And without their own PR and media infrastructure to beat back the din of the right-wing media echo chamber, Americans will buy it.
The Democratic leadership needs to stand up and say “No” to ridiculous resolutions that further the Republican agenda and perpetuate manufactured and incorrect perceptions. If they don’t, they will continue to lose the PR battle and, subsequently, the good fight.
It’s also been years since progressives like Paul Waldman (Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success), George Lakoff (Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate), Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong (Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics) illustrated the immense need for a progressive media infrastructure. When will the Democratic leadership start listening?
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Somehow, once again, two community DJs who broadcast live for two hours a week on a college radio station with a marketing budget amounting to just enough pennies to run a website and send a weekly email newsletter have placed in the top 3 for our category in the Nashville Scene’s Best of Nashville Readers’ Poll. You’ll note your humble hosts recognized in the third spot under Best Radio Personality, and one of us (not saying who), took home the prize for Best Local Liberal.
All we know how to say is: thank-you, Nashville! For us, this is a dialogue. We enjoy the conversations we have with the people who agree with us, but we enjoy the conversations just as much with the people who disagree with us (except when this resorts to name calling and insults minus tongues in cheeks). We expect that there will be plenty to talk about in the months and years to come. So give us a call or send us an email!
Posted by Freddie on October 2, 2007 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment
If I didn’t have prior plans, I’d be heading to this Barack Obama event this evening. Nashville is one of only 17 cities selected as an official participant.