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I know that Dylan Ratigan can be a bit polarizing. But today was the second time I’ve interviewed him, and I find him refreshingly honest and one of the few people who’s not afraid to speak the truth.
He joined me this morning to talk about his new book, Greedy Bastards, the need for real campaign finance reform and getting money out of politics entirely, and his Get Money Out organization merging with United Republic to effect real change.
In case you need a reminder of the fire in Ratigan, remember back to August of last year:
As if that conversation wasn’t enough the last me until Monday, we wrapped up the week with a visit from John Fugelsang.
In addition to Jan Brewer’s wagging her finger at President Obama, we talked a lot of music, including the forthcoming Bruce Springsteen tour. Have you heard the first release from his soon-to-be-released album Wrecking Ball yet?
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Last night, President Obama delivered his third State of the Union address. I dissected a lot of it on the show today. Feel free to listen to my commentary, or watch the enhanced version of the speech, courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov.
I spent the rest of the show talking with two wonderful women. First up was comedian/actress Maysoon Zayid, who most of us know from her appearances with Keith Olbermann on Countdown.
The 40 minutes or so we spent chatting (or rather, that I spent listening to her) flew by, so she’ll definitely return. In the meantime, please visit Maysoon’s website, and read the article that we discussed that she wrote about herself for AMEU.
In the second hour, I spoke with my friend Sara Robinson about the future. Why? She is actually a trained futurist and, beginning Monday, will be the new editor of AlterNet‘s Vision section.
Tomorrow – we’ll wrap our week with visits from Dylan Ratigan and John Fugelsang!
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Rick Santorum -the man with the Google problem so big that when you google his name you get this definition
Santorum 1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. 2. Senator Rick Santorum.
either has an incredibly stupid staff or a staff that’s laughing like hyenas behind his back.
Conservatives Unite Moneybomb? CUM! Wow!
Excuse the brief and tardy post, but I’m experiencing terrible computer problems. While I have a moment where it’s actually working, I though I’d write a quick post and get the podcast up…
On the show today, after laughing at Santorum’s expense…
I spoke with Susan Saladoff, the producer/director of the film Hot Coffee. Your homework is to see this movie – lots of info about it on its official website- hotcoffeethemovie.com
And as we do every Monday morning, I commiserated with Crooks and Liars‘ Nicole Belle about all the madness, including the Sunday shows, in our Fools on the Hill segment. Here’s what she brought us this week:
What I think the South Carolina primary showed beyond a reasonable doubt is that the media will do whatever it has to do to create and foster a horse race for their own benefit, their ratings and ad sales. And Saturday, John Heilemann doing the post-primary analysis admitted as such directly.
In order to keep the horse race going, the media goes after whoever is in the lead, giving the others a chance to catch up or overtake them. After a bewildering amount of discussion of Mitt Romney’s tax returns—leading Mitt to tell Chris Wallace that he’ll release his 2010 returns and his 2011 estimates and that it was a mistake to withhold them earlier—not to mention tax havens in the Cayman Islands and showing his prickly responses to those who asked him about those tax returns, Romney went from a two digit lead a week before the South Carolina primary to losing by two digits to Newt Gingrich. As Joe Scarborough said on Meet the Press, the GOP “base is revolting” against Romney.
But now, Newt is in the lead. So now the media is setting their sights on him, and boy, is he a target rich environment. Chris Christie takes a shot off his starboard plank and tells David Gregory that Gingrich “has embarrassed the party”.
Meanwhile, James Clyburn—the sole Democrat booked on the Sunday shows this week—also had some things to say about Newt Gingrich’s campaign strategy as well. Clyburn accused Gingrich of practicing the Southern Strategy of using racist code words.
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
There was no show today, but a loop playing the video above. That should explain pretty much all you need to know.
If SOPA/PIPA were to become law, this should would be an early casualty.
Want to do more?
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The always funny Ralphie May joined me on the show this morning. I’d been a fan since I first saw him on Last Comic Standing, and learned he was on my side of the political aisle after seeing him down here at the Improv last year (and watched all the right wingers squirm while he told them the truth!).
This morning, he was on a roll, going off on each of the GOP presidential hopefuls. When I asked him what he thought of President Obama’s performance, he admitted to being a big fan. He praised the president’s prowess for going after terrorists, though he did admit that our “war on terrorism” is a bit like Global Whack-a-Mole.
I don’t think he was praising that aspect, and I am most certainly not … but I thought the name for our offensive military actions is quite an apt description … unfortunately.
I began the show by recapping last night’s GOP South Carolina debate. Yes, I watched it so you didn’t have to.
And I played the latest ad from Americans for a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow (The Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert Super PAC) – something that works better on video than radio. So watch it for yourself:
Wow. I wish I lived in South Caroline – but only to be able to vote for Herman Cain on Saturday!
As we do every Tuesday morning, I spent most of the second hour of the show talking with GottaLaff of The Political Carnival… We touched on some of these stories, and more:
Gasp! Rick Santorum’s hard-core, anti-choice wife dated, lived with an abortion provider
Two more reasons to vote for President Obama
Michele Bachmann: Hey Newt, I haven’t endorsed you, so pull the ad!
Mitt Romney to financially struggling woman- Here’s a couple bucks
Oops! James O’Keefe’s “voter fraud” sting glitch: Confusing a 23-year-old for a dead 84-year-old.
Today is Martin Luther King Day, and I get to celebrate on two shows! Randi has the day off, so I’ll be guest hosting for her this afternoon.
We’ll talk Martin Luther King and the many events and activities happening today for the holiday with Van Jones of Rebuild the Dream.
In the second hour, we’ll talk about the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United v. the FEC, which comes on Friday. I’ll speak with Jeffrey D. Clements, a co-founder of Free Speech for People and author of the Definitive Guide to Overturning Citizens United: Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It.
I’ll also speak with comedian Lee Camp who used comedy and some serious people in a video to explain the need to overturn Citizens United:
This Morning on the Show
This morning, we began with a listen back to Stephen Colbert’s brilliant explanation of what Citizens United is all about from his show on Thursday evening, when he handed over the Americans for A Better Tomorrow Tomorrow PAC to Jon Stewart so that he can run for President of the United States of South Carolina…
True brilliance! Colbert then went on This Week with George Stephanopolous to explain more…
I spoke with my friend – author and activist David Swanson about a new book that he edited and is available today, The Military Industrial Complex at 50.
And Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars joined in, as she does every Monday morning, with a segment we call Fools on the Hill…
Hubris, thy name is Newt Gingrich. Because the Newtster—despite running fourth in the polls a full 25 points behind front runner Mitt Romney—thinks he’s going to win the SC primary.
Ugly American, thy name is Brit Hume. Because Brit Hume doesn’t understand the widespread condemnation of the Marines involved in the video showing them urinating on dead Taliban. He doesn’t think it’s despicable at all.
Panicked partisan, thy name is Lindsey Graham. He’s looking at all the potshots being taken at front runner Mitt Romney from within his own party (and really, who would have ever thought that Newt Gingrich would ever have ads attacking Mitt for being too much of a capitalist?) and Graham is very, very nervous. He warns the GOP that the election is theirs to lose if the attacks go too far.
Voice of reason, thy name is Paul Krugman. Krugman tells the This Week panel that CEO experience—like the kind of which Mitt Romney boasts—is “not relevant to being President”.
Voice of brilliance, thy name is Stephen Colbert. Colbert told George Stephanopoulos that the “more money you have, the more you can speak.” His entire Super PAC, attack ad and now presidential run are absolutely spot on demonstrations of how our electoral process is broken.
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Somewhere around the age of 10, I watched my first soap opera. It was a pre-pre-Twilight vampire story known as Dark Shadows. If I remember correctly, it was around the same time that, while home sick from school one day, I tuned in to that station a little earlier than usual and saw General Hospital for the first time and, perhaps, even One Life to Live.
I didn’t really understand anything about those shows until a few years later… perhaps junior high, but definitely high school.
General Hospital was the hot show while I was in college. Kids would schedule classes so as to be in a student lounge or near a TV at 3:00. The height of its popularity came in 1981, the year I graduated, with the wedding of Luke and Laura.
Although I was never that obsessive about it, I would watch when I was around a TV… but I always enjoyed the show that came on before GH a little more. It was One Life To Live.
My career in radio has given me a very strange schedule. I worked on many morning shows which required a 4-4:30am awakening. After a 6am show that ended at 10, I was usually home by 2. I got into a bad habit of taking an afternoon nap, and I always fall asleep with the TV on. That’s how I got re-introduced to One Life to Live and, to a lesser extent, General Hospital.
The beautiful thing about soaps is that, although people’s faces change and they can even come back from the dead, you can miss a week, a month, or even a year, and pick right back up quite easily. Often times you’ll find that a key character has found a long-lost sister or brother, that the person they thought was his parent actually wasn’t- but that some other person (usually one they despise) actually is.
These days, as I immerse myself in a world gone mad, and I try to stop thinking that the awful situation enveloping this world can never be turned around, I know I need an escape. Actually, we all do. Sometimes I escape into music. Last summer, I read the entire Harry Potter series of books. Sometimes I go to a movie or stare into the ocean at the beach. But I always knew that I could escape to a truly crazy, non-existent place called Llanview, PA, where death is never final and love is just around the corner, and money is never an issue. Between the Buchanans, Lords and Cramers, there’s enough money to buy and sell Bain Capital and put all of those crooks out on the street.
That is, I knew I could always escape there… until tomorrow.
Tomorrow, ABC pulls the final plug on One Life to Live, as it did to All My Children just a few months ago. (I never did get in to AMC, although I do remember the Z Morning Zoo in NY- when I worked across the street at WPLJ- did a daily All My Children update…)
Instead of the campy humor and escapism of OLTL, on Monday ABC will run The Revolution in its place. (Tim Gunn, I’ll never forgive you for this!) I will not be watching. Instead, I’ll pick up a book.
On Today’s Show
To share in my sorrow, and to prove that I’m not the only smart, sassy, progressive woman alive who watches OLTL, I invited my friend Susie Madrak to commiserate with me this morning. I know that some people did tune out, but I was surprised by the tweets and emails I got from others just like us who will feel the gaping hole in our day on Monday. Of course we did spend some time talking about Mitt and Newt- the GOP race is almost as entertaining as a fun, campy soap opera.
I didn’t talk about that topic with my other two guests this morning. Amanda Terkel of Huffington Post joined me (for the first time) to talk about the Republicans eating their own – a soap opera of its own!
And, as he does on most Thursday mornings, John Fugelsang made me laugh. There are lots of places to find John – at his website, on twitter, and on the Sexy Liberal Tour!
And last, but certainly not least, a big thank you to Newt Gingrich on behalf of the Obama campaign for doing their dirty work…
Click here to watch the full 27.5 minute film, King of Bain: When Mitt Romney Came to Town, or watch it below. Of course, this is courtesy of the Winning Our Future PAC (and they have nothing to do with Newt… really… I’m not kidding.. right)
But this one is courtesy of the Gingrich campaign… a new ad called “For the Dogs”. Once again, thanks Newt!
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Ten years ago today, the first 20 prisoners, or detainees as they are now known, arrived at the US base at Guantanamo Bay. Over the course of 10 years, that prison has held 779 “enemy combatants”. Labeled thusly, they were somehow allowed to be held indefinitely and without charges.
Today, 171 detainees remain. Nearly half of them have been cleared for release, but there are no plans to release them. President Obama, by signing the NDAA on Dec. 31, 2011, has made this indefinite detention the law of the land. The United States now legally can hold these prisoners – many of which have done nothing to merit their imprisonment – indefinitely.
This morning on the show, I discussed the legacy of Guantanamo Bay from its past to its shameful present with Jason Leopold, who has been writing about Gitmo for Truthout.org.
“It Was a Sunny Day,” published this morning, recounts the opening of Guantanamo Bay as hell on earth, as told to Jason by then-Gitmo guard Brandon Neely, who was there as the first prisoners arrived.
I also invited Tim Karr of FreePress.net to come on the show this morning to talk about something the corporate media is ignoring – SOPA and its companion bill in the senate, PIPA. The reason you won’t hear about these bills that could and would change the internet as we know it is because they – the major media companies – are in favor of their passage. We will continue talking about online censorship here, and doing all we can to stop these horrendous bills from going through.
January 20 marks the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizen Untied that allows for unlimited personal and corporate donations to political groups and, indirectly, candidates. That ruling has given way to this hit piece about Mitt Romney by Newt Gingrich (err, indirectly). It’s a 27.5 minute film (as Newt explained – though he really knows nothing about it)… Here’s the trailer:
Although I enjoy watching the Republicans destroy on another, the entire notion of unfettered campaign contributions is simply wrong.
Lee Camp put together a great video to help spread the word about the importance of overturning Citizens United… Enjoy and please share:
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Florida has been the land of apathy for far too long. The heat and humidity have now given way to activism.
Today marks the start of the 2012 Florida Legislative Session, and criminal Governor Rick Scott’s second State of the State address. We the people of Florida will not sit back silently and watch those up in Tallahassee impose their will on the rest of us.
Nineteen cities in Florida are hosting Awake The State rallies today. You can find one near you here. I’ve been invited to speak at the one in Palm Beach; I’ll be delivering the response to Scott’s address… it should be interesting! Details on tomorrow’s show, I promise.
This morning, I spoke with Progress Florida‘s online director Ray Seaman (who originally came up with the Awake the State idea!), Nick Steffens – organizer of Awake Broward, and Rick Neuhoff – one of the people behind Awake the State Palm Beach and a candidate for Palm Beach County Commission in 2012!
As is the case every Tuesday morning in the second hour of the show, I was joined by The Political Carnival’s GottaLaff. We talked about these stories and more….
VIDEO: Rick Santorum, who wants a U.S. theocracy, says sure, bomb Iran because it’s a theocracy
Video- Mitt Romney Don’t run for office unless you’re independently wealthy
Newt Tells Mitt To Drop The Pious Baloney
Rick Santorum: Pres. Obama’s a snob. Not every child should go to college.
America locked a children’s humanitarian aid worker in Gitmo for 7 years. He wasn’t the only one.
Video- Mitt Romney: ‘I Like Being Able To Fire People Who Provide Services To Me’
Guest Post: “Why I’m leaving the Republican Party…and Endorsing President Obama”
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When I went on the air this morning, the furthest thing from my mind was the possibility of speaking with one of the key actors in the Iran Contra scandal that plagued this country during the Reagan administration. Of course, if you listened to any of the GOP sycophants running around the US these days, Reagan was a saint who never raised taxes or was complicit in international crimes.
Of course, we know all about those Reagan years, and Ronnie’s former National Security Adviser Robert “Bud” McFarlane. What I didn’t know – and honestly didn’t care about until this morning, is that McFarlane is now working as an foreign policy adviser on Newt Gingrich’s campaign.
It still wouldn’t matter to me if I had not been put on the phone with him during my show this morning!
Each morning at 11am ET, I get a news report – or more accurately, engage in a discussion about that day’s news with someone from the Talk Radio News Service. This week, TRNS is in New Hampshire, covering the primary there, and running a “radio row” in which they provide broadcast facilities and guests for the visiting stations to interview.
This morning, they provided me with McFarlane is a guest.
Usually, the guests are involved with whatever event is being covered and I can usually just wing it with an interview. This morning, though, I would have preferred a bit of advance notice so I could have adequately prepared.
Mr. McFarlane’, again, played a key role in Iran Contra – and he’s now advising Newt Gingrich on foreign policy? Scary thought. While I was a bit shocked at the start of our conversation, I let him speak and then questioned him on his asinine statements.
He criticized “Obamacare” – and when I pushed him on that, he protested that his area of expertise was foreign policy. So, I questioned him on our involvement in Afghanistan until he changed the subject and criticized Obama for increasing the nation’s debt. When I asked him about George W. Bush’s responsibility for his unbridled spending (and waging of wars), he again sidestepped my questions.
When he outright lied by claiming “hundreds of thousands” would be put back to work if only we’d approve the Keystone XL pipeline, I ended the charade of an interview.
Listen for yourself here… or just listen for it in the middle of the whole show podcast…
In the first hour, I spoke with activist Robert Abston – national coordinator for the Progressive Leadership Action Network and NewStand Media. He compiled a great collection of essays from some of the best progressive minds in the nation for FIX America: How Each of Us Can Help All of Us, and has some great ideas about promoting a progressive vision that I hope he can realize!
In hour two, as we do every Monday, I visited with Nicole Belle of Crooks & Liars to recap the Sunday talking head shows in a segment we call Fools on the Hill. Today, I was still a bit shell shocked coming off the McFarlane fiasco so we didn’t actually get to a lot of the audio… but here’s her recap. The links are definitely worth following. A giant comedy of errors…
Because we just don’t get enough Republican debates, NBC decided to pre-empt their regularly Meet the Press for an ungodly early debate in New Hampshire. As usual, the clear winner of the debate was President Obama, because the Republicans just couldn’t keep showing themselves as the clowns they are.
Ron Paul, for example, rejected moderator David Gregory’s framing of what entitlements Ron Paul wanted to cut to prove how serious he was about dealing with the deficit. But because we’re talking about Ron Paul, the framing he rejected wasn’t the notion that entitlements needed to be cut, but that entitlements should exist at all. As Paul said, “Entitlements are not rights.”
Mitt Romney, to whom his rivals were oddly charitable, took several opposing stances during the debates. When asked by Gregory whose economic outlook he agreed with more, Warren Buffett and his “raise the taxes on the wealthy, they can afford it” or Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes”, Romney refused to answer the question directly. But lest you think he might be leaning towards Buffett, Romney immediately adopted Norquist’s tax policy as his own.
Mitt also suggested that only rich people should run for office in that clip.
Credit Newt Gingrich for having the quote of the day during the debate when he told Romney to cut the “pious baloney.”
On the non-debate front, John McCain proves just what a finger on the pulse of American sentiment he has by insisting to Bob Schieffer that we should be still in Iraq, because it’s “unraveling.”
And finally, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told Candy Crowley that she absolutely thinks Obama should run on how little Congress has accomplished in its overarching need to oppose any legislation that would assist him (and therefore, the country).
