Month: March 2004

THE JOHN KERRY FBI FILE: back in 1971, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI considered John Kerry a possible threat to national security because of his outspoken protests against the war.
John Glionna of the LA Times reports; plus Gerald Nicosia, author of Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement.

Plus: HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and Washington Post, with political analysis of the storm around Richard Clarke’s argument that Bush ignored the threat of terrorism for months before 9-11.

— and MARC COOPER of The Nation talks about his new book, The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas. Marc will be reading and signing at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, Thursday at 7pm.

Web extras:
–The MoveOn.org TV ad featuring Richard Clarke
–The Billionaires for Bush TV ads— “you have nothing to lose except your job.”

SANDRA TSING LOH was fired by KCRW for a broadcast that included a forbidden word — she talks about timidity in public radio.
(She’s still doing commentaries on “Marketplace” — and moves to KPPC in June.)

ALSO: The Fountain at the Center of the World , by ROBERT NEWMAN — the New York Times called it “the Catch 22 of the anti-Globalization movement.”

and IAN WILLIAMS, UN correspondent for The Nation and contributor to the LA Weekly, will talk about Israel’s assassination of Hamas head Sheik Yassin.

WEB EXTRA: DENNIS MILLER‘s unbelievably condescending interview with ERIC ALTERMAN of The Nation about Bush’s lies– watch the video.

The first anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq :
— a report from UC Irvine historian MARK LeVINE of Occupation Watch live in Baghdad,
— and comment and analysis from HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the Washington Post.

Web extra: Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got caught blatantly contradicting his past statements on the justifications for going to war, and we have the video clip. check it out at www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

Web extra: 200 misleading statements on Iraq from the Bush Administration.

Also: WOODY GUTHRIE‘s music and politics: the definitive biography has just been published: Ramblin Man by Ed Cray: he’ll be live in-studio to talk about the man who wrote “This Land is Your Land.”

3 STRIKES/10 YEARS
This week is the 10th anniversary of California’s three strikes law — and the latest evidence is that it has NOT reduced crime, as its defenders claim. Today: comment and analysis from JOE DOMANICK of USC’s Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism — he’s just published Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America’s Golden State

the key facts: “Three Strikes Law has Little Effect, Study Finds”: L.A. Times

Plus Geri Silva of Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes, and Vince Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute; they call Three Strikes “A law that fails.”

Also: gay marriage is sweeping California; but will it help George Bush’s reelection campaign? State Senator SHEILA KUEHL comments; she’s been performing gay marriage ceremonies in San Francisco. And check out Lambda Legal on “Freedom to Marry”

SEYMOUR HERSH reported the My Lai Massacre; now in The New Yorker he shows that the Bush administration has tolerated a nightmarish nuclear weapons black market in Pakistan in return for permission for US troops to hunt Osama inside that country.

Also: our report on HAITI: AMY WILENTZ wrote the book The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier — in The Nation she says the coup d’etat in Haiti is the biggest event there since the revolution 200 years ago.

Plus political commentary on Kerry v. Bush from JOHN NICHOLS — he writes “The Online Beat” at www.TheNation.com.