Month: August 2007
Turkey’s banning of WordPress – mentioned on air
Don’t Block the Blog is fighting Turkey’s banning of WordPress. Ali Eteraz has more a lot more details.
Show Details for August 26th, 2007
This Week’s Guests:
— Mississippi journalist DONNA LADD on the 1964 Klan double murder prosecution and conviction
— DANIEL HOPSICKER on Barry Seal, the CIA, the drug trade, and the Mob
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— Mississippi journalist DONNA LADD on the 1964 Klan double murder prosecution and conviction
After 43 years, on Friday a guilty verdict and sentencing brought to a conclusion a double murder.
Two young black men, Charles Moore and Henry Dee, were tortured and killed by Klansmen in Mississippi in 1964. After 43 years, the case was finally brought to trial this year, resulting in a guilty verdict against James Ford Seale. Seale’s punishment, three life terms for counts of kidnapping and conspiracy, was announced on Friday. A co-conspirator was given immunity to testify against Seale.
Seale had been reported to be dead, but was found with persistent investigation by a victim’s brother and a number of journalists, including our guest. Donna Ladd is the editor of the Jackson Free Press in Mississippi. Monitor co-host Pokey Anderson will talk to her about the case.
When Seale’s arrest was made early in 2007, relatives of the two victims spoke.
Henry Dee’s sister, Thelma Collins, told the AP through sobs: “I never thought I would live to see it, no sir, I never did. I always prayed that justice would be done — somehow, some way.”
“I’ve been crying. First time I’ve cried in about 50 years,” Thomas Moore, the 63-year-old brother of the victim Charles Moore, said after the arrest. He helped locate Seale.
At the sentencing on Friday, Thomas Moore said to Seale: “I hope you perhaps spend the rest of your natural life in prison thinking of what you did to Charles Moore and Henry Dee and how you ran for a long time but you got caught. I hope the spirit of Charles and Henry come to your cell every night and visit with you to teach you what is meant by love of your fellow man.”
Two years ago, victim’s brother Thomas Moore, and several men
including his nephew Michael Webster, erect a sign in front of
where murderer James Ford Seale was believed to live.
PHOTO: Kate Medley, Jackson Free Press
Two years ago, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted in the high-profile 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman (the subject of the film “Mississippi Burning”). The Monitor interviewed Susan Klopfer, author of “Where Rebels Roost: Mississippi Civil Rights Revisited” about that case, and she spoke of the number of other unsolved murders of that time period.
At that time, Donna Ladd was leading a team of young native Mississippians to cover the Killen trial and began working with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. to revisit the 1964 Klan murders of Charles Moore and Henry Dee. Ladd’s story led to a series of national stories on the case and helped move the cold case to a national stage. She also reported for the first time that a primary suspect in the case was not dead as had been erroneously reported by The Clarion Ledger and the Los Angeles Times. The package of stories won second place in AAN’s 2006 investigative reporting contest.
Donna Ladd is a graduate of Mississippi State University and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she studied journalism with a social justice focus. She used to write for the Village Voice and helped start the Colorado Springs Independent. After an absence of 18 years, she returned to her home state of Mississippi. In the first three years of the Jackson Free Press, Ladd has won five national writing awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies.
David Ridgen, of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., shares credit for advancing the Seale investigation while filming a documentary about the case, which aired earlier this year, “Mississippi Cold Case.” He worked together with Thomas Moore, pictured above.
ARTICLE:
“I Want Justice, Too”
by Donna Ladd
July 20, 2005
Jackson Free Press
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=6668_0_9_0_C
DOCUMENTARY:
“Mississippi Cold Case” by David Ridgen, CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/mississippicoldcase/
— DANIEL HOPSICKER on Barry Seal, the CIA, the drug trade, and the Mob
Independent journalist DANIEL HOPSICKER returns to the Monitor to discuss various topics with co-host Mark Bebawi, including Barry Seal, the CIA, the drug trade, and the Mob.
He is the author of Welcome to Terrorland, Mohamed Atta & The 9-11 Cover-up in Florida (2004: Mad Cow Press). He has also done several series of articles on voting machine companies, as well as on the Duke Cunningham scandal. Hopsicker lives in Venice, Florida.
WEBSITE:
www.madcowprod.com
BOOKS:
Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up in Florida
Barry & ‘the Boys’: The CIA, the Mob and America’s Secret History
FILM:
Documentary Mohamed Atta & the Venice Flying Circus
Show Details for August 19th, 2007
This week’s Guests:
— JUDY BERTELSEN on California election integrity developments: a watershed?
— Military Correspondent JOE GALLOWAY re Petraeus report; Karl Rove
— JUDY BERTELSEN on California election integrity developments: a watershed?
JUDY BERTELSEN is a primary care physician in the East Bay of the San Francisco area. She has been an election integrity activist since after the 2000 election. Judy calls the recent comprehensive, top-to-bottom review of election systems by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen “a watershed.” Monitor co-host Pokey Anderson will discuss the results of the review with Judy, including a look at the equipment used in Harris County, Texas — Hart InterCivic. In addition, we’ll look at Judy’s perspective on whether post-election auditing can be relied on as a tool to secure fair elections.
Judy is co-chair of the Voting Rights Task Force (VRTF) in the East Bay. The VRTF was asked to help with election protection for the Jerry McNerney campaign in Congressional District 11. Her task was mainly with the effort to observe the 1% manual tally in the 4 counties that make up that congressional district. That effort clarified for her that California’s 1% manual tally does not, in its present incarnation, serve in any serious way as an audit of the election. (The group’s report is here: http://www.countedascast.com/docs/CD11_Manual_Tally_Report_Jan01.pdf.)
Members of the VRTF worked hard to elect Debra Bowen Secretary of State, and they trek to Sacramento for key occasions, such as the public hearing in early July that opened the work of Bowen’s Post-Election Audit Working Group, and a recent all-day hearing on Bowen’s Top to Bottom Review. The Post-Election Audit Working Group included a statistician and a forensic CPA; the group has endorsed a professional standard for election audits.
Besides being a primary care physician and geriatrician, Judy has a Ph.D. in political science.
REPORTS:
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s top-to-bottom review of voting machines.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm
Including Report on Hart InterCivic by University of California Red Team:
Hart InterCivic (.pdf, 376KB)
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/ttbr/red_hart_final.pdf
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL OF INTEREST ON ELECTIONS:
DAN RATHER REPORTS VIDEO: ‘The Trouble with Touch Screens’
Will be HUGE Trouble for Sequoia, ES&S and Maybe the Republicans from the 2000 Election!
August 15, 2007
Bradblog.com
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4960 includes links to the Dan Rather video
VoterAction calls for Congressional Investigation (http://www.voteraction.org):
[The HDnet] broadcast by Dan Rather Reports of “The Trouble with Touch Screens” raises serious questions as to whether US voting systems companies have engaged in commercial fraud by knowingly marketing defective products to jurisdictions throughout the country. It also serves as a wake-up call to the nation of the dangers associated with the outsourcing of key election functions to private vendors. Voter Action today calls on the US Congress to launch a full investigation into the increasing influence and control that private companies wage in the way we conduct our elections and to determine whether certain US voting systems companies have committed crimes under federal and state anti-fraud statutes which should be referred to the appropriate authorities for prosecution.
— Military Correspondent JOE GALLOWAY re Petraeus report; Karl Rove
Our second guest is JOSEPH GALLOWAY, a military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers and a former senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder. Monitor co-host Mark Bebawi will discuss with him the long-awaited General Petraeus report coming in mid-September. Though previously billed as objective advice to the president on Iraq, it turns out the report will actually be written by White House aides.
In addition, Joe has a new column about Karl Rove, in which he writes:
“A time is coming, and coming soon, when we as a nation must begin thinking and talking about and planning to repair all that the Bush administration has broken or bent or twisted. A time when we must begin shoveling out a stable full to the roof with what Harry Truman called horse manure …”
Joe’s distinguished journalist career spans four decades, and he has covered wars including Vietnam, Desert Storm, Haiti, and East Timor. He is the recipient of a Bronze Star Medal and the Medal of Valor of the U.S. Army awarded to a civilian for service during Vietnam Galloway is co-author of the best-selling book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young.” General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway “the finest combat correspondent of our generation–a soldier’s reporter and a soldier’s friend.”
ARTICLES:
“Whose Report Is It, Anyway?”
By Dan Froomkin
August 16, 2007
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/08/16/BL2007081601003.html?hpid=topnews
“Commentary: Rove converted politics into a blood sport”
by Joseph Galloway
August 16, 2007
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/galloway/story/18991.html
“2006 Suicide Rate for Soldiers Sets a Record for the Army”
Associated Press/ New York Times
August 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/us/17suicide.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
“Ninety-nine soldiers killed themselves last year, the highest suicide rate in the Army in 26 years of record-keeping, a new report says.”
Show Details for August 12th, 2007
Today’s Guests:
— Economist DEAN BAKER on the mess in the housing and financial markets
— Journalist JOHN NICHOLS on impeachment
— Economist DEAN BAKER on the mess in the housing and financial markets
Macro-economist DEAN BAKER will be co-host Pokey Anderson’s guest today. The topic is the mess the housing markets are in — how did it get that way, will the impact ripple outward, and what’s going to happen next? Also, how well did the media warn us?
Baker has just published an article, “Midsummer Meltdown: Prospects for the Stock and Housing Markets.”
Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington. He also has a blog, “Beat the Press,” http://www.prospect.org/deanbaker where he discusses the media’s coverage of economic issues. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.
ARTICLES:
Midsummer Meltdown: Prospects for the Stock and Housing Markets
by Dean Baker
August 2007
Center for Economic and Policy Research
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/meltdown_2007_08.pdf
The Peace Weenies Were Right
By Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t
May 21, 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052107R.shtml
BOOKS by Dean Baker:
The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer www.conservativenannystate.org
WEBSITE:
Center for Economic and Policy Research — http://www.cepr.net
— JOHN NICHOLS on impeachment
JOHN NICHOLS will be Mark Bebawi’s guest today (pre-recorded).
The topic is impeachment, who, and how? This will be a continuation of the discussion last week, with a special look at the international implications of impeachment.
John Nichols is a frequent guest at The Monitor, especially on the topic of media reform. He writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers. Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues.
Nichols is the author of the new book The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism (The New Press). (Articles of impeachment have been brought sixty-two times in American history.) We’ve interviewed him previously about his fascinating book, Against the Beast: An Anti-Imperialist Reader.
Nichols is co-founder of Free Press, the nation’s media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.
BOOKS by John Nichols:
The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism
by John Nichols
Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy
by John Nichols, Robert W. McChesney, Tim Robbins, and Tom Tomorrow
Against the Beast: An Anti-Imperialist Reader
Dick: The Man Who is President (Dick Cheney)
Show Details for August 5th, 2007
Pledge Drive Show featuring
JOHN NICHOLS on impeachment
The topic is impeachment, who, and how? John Nichols is a frequent guest at The Monitor, especially on the topic of media reform. He writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers. Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues.
Nichols is the author of the new book The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism (The New Press). (Articles of impeachment have been brought sixty-two times in American history.) We’ve interviewed him previously about his fascinating book, Against the Beast: An Anti-Imperialist Reader.
Nichols is co-founder of Free Press, the nation’s media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.
BOOKS by John Nichols:
The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism
by John Nichols
Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy
by John Nichols, Robert W. McChesney, Tim Robbins, and Tom Tomorrow
Against the Beast: An Anti-Imperialist Reader
Dick: The Man Who is President (Dick Cheney)
Show Details for July 29th, 2007
This week’s guests explore the theme of Empire: Harley Schlanger and Chalmers Johnson
Harley Schlanger:
Harley is the Western States Spokesman for the LaRouche PAC and on the board of editors of the Executive Intelligence Review. He joins Mark Bebawi for a discussion of the BAE Systems scandal, impeachment and Empire.
Links:
Chalmers Johnson
Chalmers Johnson is an author and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He is also president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute, an organization promoting public education about Japan and Asia. He has written numerous books including, most recently, three examinations of the consequences of American Empire, Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic. Chalmers Johnson has been a guest on the Monitor in the past. This week he joins Mark Bebawi to talk about the history of the CIA. He recently reviewed a new book on the subject (link below)
The Monitor 