A new decade can bring with it many changes as people take stock, revaluate, and re-focus. We have not been left out of this phenomenon, and as we move into the summer of 2010, after long and deliberative thinking and discussions, we have decided to end Liberadio(!) with Mary Mancini and Freddie O’Connell.

As of Monday, June 7, Mary will be the new Executive Director of Tennessee Citizen Action, a public interest advocacy organization, and Freddie’s new inbound marketing agency, SearchViz, is growing at the same time as some of his other civic interests and responsibilities. We both feel that now is the time to focus all our energy and productivity towards these endeavors.

Before we go, however, we have a few final words. Most of which are “thank you!”

For the last 6 years you, our faithful listeners, have turned your dial to WRVU-FM on Monday mornings or pointed your browser to liberadio.com to allow us do our best to entertain and inform you. You’ve listened, called in, shared your thoughts and ideas, and heeded many calls to action. You are the embodiment of a deliberative and participatory democracy and for that, we can’t thank you enough.

We’d also like to wholeheartedly thank each one of our many talented, knowledgeable, and dedicated guests who took the time to share their expertise and passions with us. It’s not easy getting up at the crack of dawn and yet week after week our guests (especially the ones in time zones West of us) did just that. You are the spark that lights the fire beneath a participatory democracy, and for this we thank you.

A special guest acknowledgement goes out to Liberadio(!) team members, Elbert Ventura and Karl Frisch, purveyors of our weekly Media Matters for America Smackdown. Thank you for bringing your on-point media criticism—and the funny!—to the show week after week.

Behind the scenes, we also had tons of help. First and foremost, thank you to Teddy Bart and Karlen Evins, who reawakened Mary’s love for radio and taught us, by example, that words really do matter. And to Jim Ridley, an early and tireless Liberadio(!) cheerleader and Mary’s own personal guardian angel.

And because a show like ours can’t produce itself, big ups to Andy Finley, who shared his audio recording, editing, and podcasting expertise with us in the early days to make our recordings sound really, really good. Also, we’ve had two interns who became full-fledged producers over the years, and both were rock stars. A big “thank you” to Krystal Long and Nat Howry, who volunteered their time and skills to help us produce the show and the podcast each week. Again with the getting up early on cold, wintry mornings. Not easy but you guys were good at it and ever-hopeful that your humble hosts would actually make it to the studio with the equipment before you did!

To all our advertisers, but especially Barbara Moutenot with Village Real Estate, Bill Fletcher and FRR Media, Darek Bell, Pam Kidd & Keri Kidd Cannon, and the Bongo Java Roasting Company. You chipped in when the chips were down, and we thank you!

And though we give a nod to WRFN (Radio Free Nashville), WAMB-AM, and WNSG-AM, other stations that provided us a temporary home through the years, we have to say a huge thank you to our permanent residence: WRVU-FM. We met so many great radio neighbors—like occasional guest hosts Ashley Crownover and Lonnie Atkinson (who became much more than a fan and neighbor), Father Parthenios, and Angela Lin (may she rest in peace). We’d also like to thank the Vanderbilt Student Communications staff (especially Jim Hayes and Chris Carroll) and Board of Directors (especially Bruce Barry, Vanessa Beasley, and Kevin Leander), as well as all the members of the WRVU senior staff we’ve seen come and go through the years, all of whom have been have been more than accommodating to Liberadio(!). And a special shout out to Carl Pedersen of WPLN and long-time WRVU DJ John Brassil, neither of whom ever said “no” to one or another of our special requests for guidance or help. Thank you!

Also, to Sitemason, Nashville’s premier content management system and shared web hosting company (and our friends), who graciously provided us with gratis website and podcast hosting for 6 years without fail and without complaint, thank you!

Finally, to our dear family and friends, you can now all stop fighting over who is our “biggest fan.” With all the support and encouragement you have given us since we started the show, you absolutely must share the title. And for that, we thank you.

Once more with feeling, THANK YOU all so much!

And who knows. We might find that after a long summer on beaches all around the world (Wait. What? – Ed.) that we just can’t tear ourselves away from the microphones forever…

Our love, and till some sunny day,

Mary Mancini and Freddie O’Connell

Summary: Featuring Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry, Center for American Progress Policy Analyst Ian Millhiser, and Karl Frisch and the Media Matters for America Smackdown.

A Conversation with Justin Bieber, Part 1 We apologize, but by the time our show aired, Justin Bieber had to cancel. We’re sad but we forge ahead with the Liberadio(!) “To Do” list, Freddie as a bicycle valet, the Davidson County Democratic Party straw poll debrief, and a rundown of the news. Plus, Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry joins us live to tell us the story of her client Gaile Owens, one of two women on Tennessee’s death row, and Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper issues an opinion[pdf] on the constitutionality of yet another vanity license plates. Beep, beep, who got the keys to the…ZOMG! Jesus is Lord! [25.4MB Click on the arrow below to listen or download mp3]Download audio file (liberadio20100419part1.mp3)

A Conversation with Justin Bieber, Part 2 In the second hour we tell you all the fun facts that weren’t reported about self-described “Tea Partiers,” and we speak to Ian Millhiser, Policy Analyst for Center for American Progress about the upcoming Supreme Court nomination – what it means to a court primarily made up of conservatives “nuts” and what the confirmation process will look like. Then, it’s once again time for Karl Frisch(!) and the Media Matters for America Smackdown – this week Karl takes Maureen Dowd and the Sunday morning talk shows to the mat – and a quick but important word about a bill that would outlaw some forms of birth control in Tennessee (which has passed in both the House and Senate and is on its way to the Governor to be signed). [23.4MB Click on the arrow below to listen or download mp3]
Download audio file (liberadio20100419part2.mp3)

Delaware and Tennessee win the first round of Obama’s 4.35 billion dollar “Race to the Top” in education. We’ll look at how they won — and where the race goes from here.

Audio will be available at 2 P.M. CT. Listen here.

UPDATE: Aunt B (did she “bless her heart” me?!) looks forward to seeing Mr. Blue Collar Republican on the TeeVee (while making me spit-take my coffee with a joke about one of music city’s finest):

I would just like to offer two bits of advice. In the future, you might want to refrain from premeditating your ‘civil disobedience’ on the internet. It’s going to make it harder for your lawyer to argue that you’re a good person who was just caught up in the emotions of the moment. Instead, you’re going to look like the kind of dude who planned and calculated whatever it is you’re going to do.

Premeditation usually means a longer sentence.

I mean, you didn’t forget about that part, did you? Where the cops come and they arrest you and you stand before a judge who doesn’t have much sympathy for brick throwing being “civil” and you go to jail? And, hell, if you’re an interesting enough target and this is y’all’s 60s, they audit you for the next decade?

And you forget the worst part. John Rich is the music of your movement. And, don’t get me wrong, he’s a talented song-writer, but he’s not the best singer in Nashville. Is that really the voice you want over the montage of your exploits in your biopic?

Anyway, I look forward to watching your perp walk on the news.

Rachel Maddow: “Actually, doing health reform is a demonstration that government is not just for show. Government is for fixing problems. We have a government, not just to give people shiny political celebrity high-profile jobs so they can win popularity contests against other people who want shiny political high-profile jobs. We have a government to work on problems that we have as a people, as a country, problems that aren‘t working themselves out intrapersonally or in the marketplace. Government is for something. We have one for a reason.”

ACORN was not brought down by a video of an ACORN representative giving financial advice to a pimp and a prostitute, as you reported on the CNN Newsroom show today.

ACORN was brought down by a hoax perpetrated by James O’Keefe (the man in the video who has admitted to misrepresenting himself, doctoring the video, lying about the incident to the media) with help from the Right wing media echo chamber run by propagandists and a lazy media who report what “the truth” told to them by the head of the modern conservative movement, Rush Limbaugh.

Those are some pretty important details to leave out, don’t you think?

Brad Friedman at BradBlog has more if, you know, you’re interested in reporting the truth:

Two days prior to the NYTimes’ very first inaccurate story on the ACORN “Pimp” Hoax, Katherine Conway Russell, a worker at ACORN Housing (actually a separate organization from ACORN) in Philadelphia released this first-hand video explanation of her meeting with O’Keefe and Giles, how they falsely represented themselves before and during the meeting, and how she came to file a police report thereafter.

“They never said that she [Giles] was a prostitute, and he was not dressed in any unusually flashy manner,” Russell explains. “Mr. O’Keefe lied to get his appointment. He was not dressed like he is on the Internet. And when we got suspicious about the questions he was asking at the Philadelphia ACORN Housing office, we called the police and filed this report,” she says.

Thanks, Bald-Headed Guy That’s Not Steve Doocy, for it’s reporting like yours that helped to take down an organization that has registered millions of low-income and minority voters, provided first time homeowner mortgage counseling and foreclosure prevention assistance, and help to enact living wage policies.

Sincerely annoyed,

Mary

UPDATE: I know Doocy works for Fox. The title is a reference to The Colbert Report. What? Not everyone obsesses over Colbert? Sheesh.

Listen, I’m certainly against the Hyde Amendment, and would like to see it repealed. But the Democrats were not going to use this healthcare bill to repeal it. Nor should they have–this should have remained a bill about healthcare and not become a platform for an abortion fight. To say that this is a horrible anti-choice bill simply because of a meaningless executive order reiterating what has been U.S. policy (if not settled law) since 1976 is misleading at best and outright intellectually dishonest at worst. Stupak was NOT given his way on this issue, but was given a way to back down and still save face. And I’ll take that over the alternative of the bill failing any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

From Aunt B., “In Which I Agree with GoldnI”:

And now we’re at a point where things are bad, really bad, worse than we have seen in most of our lifetimes. And even if the economy in general turns around today, it’s going to be a long time before things pick up for most of us, if, indeed, they ever do. I’m not trying to be depressing. That’s just the truth of the matter.

But that’s what I hear people agonizing about–what will I do for work? What if I lose my job? Where will we live? What will happen to my kids? And sometimes the terror is so deep they can’t even talk about it.

And what is our state legislature doing? The truth is, there’s not much they can do. But holy cow, if they’re not pulling out all the same old tricks, waving the red meat in front of the base, putting up legislation that hits all the right talking points for all the same old distractions.

Only to find that few of their constituents’ hearts are really in it.

You can almost sense the confusion.

From Steve Ross (Speak to Power), “Morning Coffee – Not the Wedding Singer Edition”:

Gail Kerr says something I’ve been saying for years. Enjoy being ignored, just as I and many others have!

As Democrats in Congress mount the final push to approve President Obama’s health care reform proposal, conservative Talk radio hosts across the country are mobilizing the “troops” to defeat the controversial bill. Premiere Radio Networks talker Rush Limbaugh deviated from his usual policy of not giving out DC phone numbers on his show and actively called for listeners to “flood Congress with calls and emails.” Fellow Premiere talkers and FOX News Channel personalities Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have also called for active protests from their listeners,…Meanwhile, Salem Radio Network hosts Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Janet Mefferd and Michael Medved have all placed “Say No To Obamacare” buttons on their websites to encourage listeners to email Congress. So far, the hosts combined efforts have generated nearly 1 million emails urging defeat of the pending legislation.

There. So now you also know how “death panels” became a talking point so quickly.