Aired 09/08/09 Daniel Ellsberg is an American hero. September 23rd is the 40th anniversary of the first night of copying the Pentagon Papers, which he took from his safe at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica. America was embroiled in a dirty war based on lies. A president was abusing the power of his office, ignoring the will of the people, Congress and the courts. He promised peace while planning war without end. Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst, leaded the truth about the Vietnam war to the New York Times. He risked life in prison to end a war he helped plan. Henry Kissinger called Daniel Ellsberg, "the most dangerous man in America." He's still at it. This week Ellsberg begins the online publication of The American Doomsday Machine, his memoir of the nuclear era. INFO http://www.ellsberg.net/

  Aired 12/12/09 Attorney AMY BACH spent eight years investigating the chronic lapses in courts across America. Lawyers sleep through trials. False confessions and mistaken eye-witness identifications convict the innocent. The rich walk, the poor go to prison. ORDINARY INJUSTICE goes beyond one particular injustice, one specific court, or one aspect of the legal system. Bach rejects the easy explanations of bad apples and meager funding to show how in the name of expedience legal professionals routinely choose to collaborate rather than face off as adversaries. Her investigation -- from small-town Georgia to upstate New York, from Chicago to Mississippi --reveals a culture of complicity among prosecutors, defenders, and judges that rewards shoddiness and sacrifices defendants and victims to keep the court calendar moving. http://www.slate.com/id/2234594/ http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Sullivan_v._Florida

 

Aired 03/21/10

I've been trying to book William Greider ever since I read an article of his last August about restructuring the Federal Reserve. For some, the Fed is the at the center of all that ails us. For others, it is the right place to house any new financial regulatory powers we might gain as a result of the current crisis.

There are now 32 co-sponsors for S604 in the Senate and 317 for HR1207 in the House for bills to audit the Federal Reserve, and 95,000 have signed a petition at http://www.auditthefed.com/

Just yesterday The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled the Federal Reserve must disclose the names of banks that could have collapsed if they had not received emergency loans.

Greider wrote perhaps the finest book on the Federal Reserve and always seems to keep an eye on its secretive and too powerful ways. He challenged Greenspan and Paulson long before it was fashionable. And he was right.

We'll focus on the Fed and deal with other economic and political issues if we have time.