Reminding us to remain vigilant in the face of the degradation of civil liberties, Errington and Goodman also cover the story of some brave Americans who test the No-Fly List mentality. One man’s choice of a particular tee-shirt found him in custody at a US airport. “We will not be silenced,” from the original anti-Holocaust slogan, was too inflammatory for him to go unnoticed on an American flight, especially because the tee included Arabic writing, as well!

Eric Boehlert’s interview continues the insightful commentary, as he and Errington delve into how the blogosphere has changed American journalism forever. The plethora of information grows as fewer people get cut out of the conversation. So much more discussion of what is important to our country gets covered, thanks to sites like firedoglake.org and the Huffpost… oh, and whereistheoutrage.net!

Now this is Progressive radio!

Another point of contention is the would-be Christmas Day Bomber, the struggling United States economy and Obama’s presidential performance so far. Where are all these new jobs going to come from? Is Obama making mistakes or, as Mark Karlin asks, is he really a great political chess player and we have yet to see the deciding move? Has Main Street been sacrificed to Wall Street or is there a light at the end of the tunnel? The corporate rule of America must be discussed if we are to have hope of attaining the change that we progressive thinkers want for this country.

Now this is progressive radio!

I gave away another copy of the GREAT book, Pops by Terry Teachout and another $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com. If you listen, then you can win too!!

This is clearly worth a listen.

Update from McJoan:

According to USA Today, there’s a new, influential voice pushing reconciliation to get a healthcare reform bill passed.

USA TODAY’s Washington bureau chief Susan Page reports that John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress and the former head of President Obama’s transition, said some Democrats may be taking another look at the so-called reconciliation process, a budget procedure that would let Democrats pass a health care bill with only 51 votes….

The issue, Podesta said, is whether Lieberman “is trying to get to ‘no’ ” on health care. He said Democratic congressional leaders were surprised by Lieberman’s negative language Sunday on the emerging Democratic plan.

“I suspect musty folders on reconciliation got dusted off this morning” on Capitol Hill in the wake of Lieberman’s comments. “If you don’t have Lieberman and you don’t have Nelson, the question is whether you can get Snowe and Collins.” He said the Democrats were “very close” to 60 and might still be able to get there.

On Lieberman: “I’ve given up on him” — that is, on trying to figure out what he will do.

Snowe says that she’ll only support a bill if they slow things down (because being at the heart of negotiations in the Finance committee for the past year, and being one of the bipartisan Gang of Six that drug on, and on, and on, and on, and knowing this bill inside and out just hasn’t given her enough time to make up her mind). Collins isn’t going anywhere Snowe doesn’t go first. Nelson still wants his abortion amendment.

Figure out enough compromises to make any of the “moderates” happy enough to get to 60, and you risk losing progressives, particulary Brown (who personally invested a great deal in the compromise Lieberman just blew up), Sanders, Feingold, and Burris. You also risk losing a 218 majority in the House.

Let’s hope that those musty folders are being dusted off, because there very well may be no other way to achieve this. And let’s hope the issue compromises a large part of the discussion in the Senate Dem caucus meeting this afternoon.

This huge show bundles in healthcare, with Errington’s thoughts on Michael Moore’s movie Sicko. In the movie, and played here in this broadcast, a former influential member of Britain’s Parliament explains how democracy gave the poor the vote and changed Britain’s healthcare system. If money can be found for war, why shouldn’t it be available to help within a country’s own borders? Their system isn’t free. They pay for it with tax dollars.

In addition to the giveaways during the show, the biography about Louis Armstrong, Pops and a $100 amazon.com gift card, some exciting stuff for upcoming shows is announced… a visit from someone from PC Magazine and some time talking about music with two-time Grammy winner Larry Fulcher. Which twenty CDs would you take with you to a desert island?

From global climate change to gangs on Twitter, this show is investigative and fun. Thanks and congratulations to John and Terry for their calls and prizes! Now this is progressive radio!

My special guest, Bill Scher, from Campaign for America’s Future and Liberal Oasis.

Getting down to business, this show runs the progressive gamut from corporate responsibility (or lack thereof) to the formerly tax-exempt “religious” sanctuary, C Street in Washington, to H1N1 and a guy with fifteen live lizards strapped to his body trying to smuggle them into the U.S. on a plane. Errington and Aaron touch on Big Pharmacy’s price increase this year, up approximately nine percent, and pose the question: is this coincidence, right before probable health care reform, jacking up their prices to increase profit margins? Don’t these guys owe the American public some kind of restraint and responsibility? How about the women in the news lately shut down and shut up by US contractor, KBR after their repugnant practices safeguarding policies sanctioning gang rape in their Iraq facility?

Of course healthcare is all over this episode, looming large as it does is all of our minds right now, hefty bills going back and forth in Congress, progressives and conservatives duking it out over ways it can be improved and wrestling some really big numbers. As a trauma surgeon, of course Errington brings a unique point of view to the debate. What if we focused on promoting healthy habits and tried to move the focus back to the general practitioner and away from Urgent Care and the ER? “Jerry” calls in, wondering about proposed penalties for people who won’t voluntarily get health insurance under some of the suggested healthcare legislation. At least in jail you’d get health insurance… a bed, and three squares!

Now this is progressive radio!

Looking at the unemployment rates for racial and ethnic minorities isn’t pretty, either, as 15.7% of black Americans and 13.1% of Hispanic Americans are out of work, compared to an overall rate of an alarming 10.2%. This recovery promises to be rocky, coming out of a deep recession without the housing market to bolster our growth. We’ve weathered other recessions and recoveries, but Ms Shierholz warns of “many, many years of weakness in the labor market.”

Errington plays a bit of Obama’s inspiring speech after the tragic and unpredictable events at Ft. Hood. He reminds us in his Dare to Be Stupid segment about the former Louisiana Congressmen who was busted with $90K in his freezer and is looking at thirteen years behind bars for it. The Bonehead of the Week Award goes to the guy who drove his million-dollar Bugatti into a southwest Texas bayou. Some questionable conservative choices, like stopping Senator Franken’s proposed anti rape-clause amendment and the importance of abortion choices on the health care bills, also come up. Now this is real progressive radio!

I start off by congratulating our progressive City Council candidates — Gordon Smith, Cecil Bothwell and Esther Manheimer. Crazy mad props. Also, Mayor Terry Bellamy wins her second term. Congrats!!

Do you remember that gang rape of that high school student out in California? Will new details are emerging. The victim was drugged and beaten. Remember this occurred during a homecoming dance in late October. It appears there were as many as 20 bystanders and none of them were compelled to call the police. This reminds me of that famous case of the New York, it happened in the mid-80s. This woman was beaten and killed if I’m not mistaken in many people watch the whole thing and nobody called the police. If the speculated that many people either photographed or filmed the incident with their cell phones. This is an extremely sad commentary.

By now, everyone is aware of the tragedy at Fort Hood. Sergeant Kimberly Munley appears to be the hero. She fired at the suspect Major Nidal Malik Hasan and continued to fire after she was wounded. Now comes the endless speculation. For reasons that are unclear, we, as Americans, always after these major tragedies, think they’re something that we should’ve noticed where we could have intervened. We have several of these major tragedies every year. In my opinion, what we should’ve learned, is that we cannot predict human behavior. I just don’t think we have that ability.

Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has single-handedly holding up The Veterans Caregivers and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009. He thinks it’s too expensive. Maybe, he would like to tell the troops that they aren’t worth it.

A New Zealand artist uses manure to sculpt the bust of a Environmental Minister. At least the artist has a sense of humor. The Pennsylvania State police botched a prostitution investigation by sending the informant into a massage parlor multiple times and filming everything. They might have been okay if the officers watching the various sex acts were not laughing and making lewd comments. The Pennsylvania Court of Appeals threw out the case.

My special guest is Alex Koppelman of Salon.com’s War Room. We discuss health care reform, we talk about what is wrong with the media and how we, as Americans, seek out information that agrees with our point of view. What do the Tuesday Elections mean? What about gay rights? We talk about this and more.

BTW, the book that Alex and I were trying to remember is called True Enough: Learning to live in a Post-fact Society by Farhad Manjoo.

There is more! Listen to the Errington Thompson Show – this is great progressive radio!

Realistic plans for Afghanistan come up, but the main focus of this Halloween show is the unpredictable state of healthcare, as it bounces around the House and Senate, bandied about by Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh, both of whom have wives whose professional interests in insurance companies and big pharmaceuticals make health care personal and profitable. Come for the spooky Halloween tunes and stay for the serious discussion of real goblins and ghouls. This one’s a treat.

This week’s show is all about keeping up the pressure and continuing to get things done. Errington’s guests are Paul Choi, from Organizing for America, the very successful volunteer-run grassroots team at barackobama.com, and MoveOn.org’s Randy Bernard. Healthcare takes center stage as Choi reminds everyone about Congressman Heath Shuler’s “two-a-day” plan: improving health and wellness habits by making two better choices each day. Have an apple. Take the stairs. We need to keep the healthcare reform we deserve in the conversation, keep up the pressure on Congress and don’t let President Obama forget how important this reform is.

Five million strong and celebrating its tenth year, MoveOn.org is a great example of giant grassroots success and one of its local representatives, Mr. Randy Bernard, tells listeners about the rallies across the country in support of healthcare legislation and reminds us to continue to do our part and make activism a part of our everyday lives.

Candidate for Asheville City Councilman Gordon Smith pays the show a visit a couple weeks before the election, too. Here’s another fine example of how activism and participation make a difference. So listen in and learn how we can all contribute to the continued progressive success that’s changing our country.

Let me know what you think of Mr. Perry. Would you vote for him? Will he help New Orleans?

Again I reminded my listeners that October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. I continue to encourage those that have the means to give generously.

There was some sort of attack on the Pakistani military base early Saturday morning. At the time of my show there weren’t many details. Several of the attackers and Pakistani soldiers were killed. It is critical to our national interest to have a stable and prosperous Pakistan. Former Texas Representative Charlie Wilson, the man who is credited with funding the mujahedin in Afghanistan to help topple the Russians, said we need to get out of Afghanistan now. To be honest, I’m still studying the issue and reading whatever I can on it. Words like quagmire and goals keep popping into my head.

A recent poll showed only 38% of parents were likely to vaccinate their children against the swine flu (H1N1). This sets up an extremely dangerous scenario. If 38% of children do not get vaccinated this leaves an enormous amount of children and adults vulnerable. I talk with Greg Dworkin (physician and Daily Kos contributor) about this virus and where we are. We discuss health care reform and the fact that we are closer now than ever to getting something passed in both the House and the Senate.

I also talk with Doctor Eddie Cornwell who is the chief of surgery at Howard University. Ever since Representative Alan Grayson (Democrat — Florida) mentioned a study which clearly showed that health insurance status affects your ability to survive illness, many in the media have been reporting this like it was new. Doctor Cornwell published a nice paper in the surgery literature which clearly showed that race affects outcome and insurance status. Surprisingly, insurance status was a stronger predictor of survival than race.

All of this an more! Enjoy this podcast.

Just got back from Rome and Athens. It was awesome.

Thanks to Leslie from Local Edge Radio for sitting in for me. I truly appreciate it.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Mammograms, chemotherapy, research… we need more.

My guests: Heidi Sheirholz, PhD, from the Economic Policy Institute is in the house to chat about the latest jobs numbers. Igor Volsky is the healthcare policy wonk at the Wonk Room which is part of the Great ThinkProgress.org blog.

More later.

There’s been a lot of craziness in the news this week and I can think of nobody better to unravel the craziness than Bill Scher from Liberal Oasis and Campaign for America’s Future. Bill is correct to point out we could have no better adversary. We can either have somebody intelligently discussing the conservative approach to health care reform or these angry mobs screaming at our congressmen. Once the press began to focus on the mobs Liberals clearly appeared to be rational and thoughtful. Also, the press suggested, at the beginning of the week that these mobs were speaking for middle America. By the end of the week, it was clear that they were speaking for the far right.

Let’s slow down. Bill points out that this is a disingenuous argument by the right wing. He points out that nobody from that Right is saying slow down. I have a really good idea.

By the end of a week, Sonia Sotomayor joins the Supreme Court as the 111th Supreme Court justice in the history of the United States. Barack Obama gets Cash for Clunkers through Congress. President Bill Clinton goes to Pyongyang and brings back the two journalists that were imprisoned from Current TV. It’s an excellent example of how conservatives will never except that Democrats can do anything well. There is no quid pro quo. Bill Scher is great as usual.

I speak with Heidi Shierholz from the Economic Policy Institute.  We discussed the “better” economic numbers. It’s hard to celebrate the loss of 247,000 jobs but that’s a lot less than over 700,000 jobs that we saw earlier in the year.  It is not time to do a happy dance but if you were on the ledge getting ready to jump, you can come back inside.

I opened the show with a discussion about the healthcare “debate.” First of all, I don’t think there’s been much debate. Republicans are basically saying no. They’re saying no to single-payer. They’re saying no to the public option. Democrats, on the other hand, are putting forth these reasonable arguments and the only response they get is no. Somehow, this has become debate.

I get the feeling that some progressives are becoming disheartened because we have both houses of Congress and the White House and we’re still not really getting what progressives would consider to be liberal legislation. I think there was a sense that after the election we could put our government on autopilot. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we don’t speak up and remind our elected officials what we’re thinking then the only thing they will hear will be the Republicans saying no. We have to be there to push back. We have to remain active.

I take the opportunity to point out how Republicans try to distract us from reality. This was mentioned wonderfully in the book by Rick Perlstein called Nixonland and in Thomas Frank’s book The Wrecking Crew. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama played into some of this by commenting on the Professor Gates incident up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The mainstream media picks up on this diversion. Therefore, several news cycles are taken up with a discussion, with no point, of racism. We got to meet the police officer that arrested Professor Gates. We got the president to come out and “clarify” his comments. We have the local police union supporting the police officer yet, there’s no substantive discussion on race or racism. All the while, we should be focused on healthcare because we’re not going to fix the race problem by beating up (figuratively not literally) the police officer or Professor Gates or both of them. I won’t even mention Glenn Beck and his inflammatory comments although I do play the clip.

Our first guest is Joan McCarter from the Daily Kos. She’s been blogging a lot on healthcare. I asked her are we going to get a public option. She agrees with me that we need a strong progressive movement to push Congress toward a public option. I talk about the lack of leadership for strong public option in the Senate. It is unclear to me what Harry Reid is doing but I hope he’s not getting paid to lead. We talk about the current state of legislation in the Senate and the fact that Senator Max Baucus does not appear to be representing what progressives want. Senator Jay Rockefeller has stated that although he is on the Senate Committee on Health, he has been shut out of the legislative process. Finally, we discussed the fact that it appears that President Obama has not closed off any options. Everything is still on the table. Joan points out that we’re far enough into the process, everything should not be on the table.

My second guest is Dr. Andy Coates who is a national leader of Physicians for a National Health Program. He points out how he came to the decision that we needed to have some sort of national health program. It is the inequity in health care. The disparity is not just about black versus white, but also urban versus rural and rich versus poor. As far as our national “discussion” goes, it’s unclear how we began to talk about national insurance when what we need is a discussion on national health care reform. We talk about the anonymous amount of money that we’re spending on healthcare now and Dr. Coates points out that the money we’re spending needs to go to care. What a concept! Healthcare dollars going to take care of patients. Single-payer could save us, SAVE US three to four trillion dollars over 10 years.

Why is healthcare in the US more expensive? I explain.

This is an outstanding show. Enjoy.

Last week, the Democrats and specifically those who have pushed healthcare reform were on the defensive. I think that they were overwhelmed by the ferocity and viciousness of those who do not want reform. There was a lot of activity at the end of last week with the progressive Democrats in the House clearly stating that they will not support any healthcare reform bill that does not have a “strong” public option. President Barack Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seemed to back away from the public option over the weekend.

The leadership in the Senate is either confused or completely silent. Senator Max Baucus does not seem to reflect the mainstream Democratic Party. He seems to reflect the interests of big medical business. Senator Kent Conrad, also a major player in the health care debate, has come up with this idea of healthcare co-ops. I’ve written about co-ops on this blog before. Although we do not know all the details of how a co-op would work, it doesn’t seem that co-ops would help drive down prices and truly increase competition as they been billed.

I asked Joan about a couple of broad goals of healthcare reform which would be to control costs and to cover 46 million Americans who are currently uninsured. Joan points out how these two goals are interrelated. If the 46 million Americans were to have health insurance then they could go for preventative care, decreasing emergency room visits and costs. This is critical and I appreciate Joan for making this point.

We also discussed the fact that a strong public option, really single-payer, would make business more competitive. Small business becomes more competitive both in their local markets and also abroad because they don’t have to worry about the burden of providing health care for their workers. That cost is shared by all Americans.

This is a great conversation. Really, don’t miss this interview with Joan McCarter from the Daily Kos. Enjoy!

I start the show by discussing healthcare. Since the discussion in Washington has become so confusing, I start at the beginning. I play a clip from Barack Obama’s news conference in which he lays out the facts of what happens if we keep the status quo. I think it is clear that the status quo will more than double our health care over the next 10 years. We know the statistics about bankruptcies and the crushing burden of healthcare on small businesses.

We need to do something different. The question is what? In my mind, in order to organize this process, I think it is important to lay out the goals. The goals that I have laid out for healthcare reform our portability, efficiency and cost effective. Many of the proposals that are currently floating around Washington are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The goals that I’ve outlined, in my opinion, are the minimum qualifications for healthcare reform.

Let’s simply look at the numbers. In 2007, we spent $2.2 trillion on health care. This averages out to approximate $7400 per American. Approximately $700 billion was spent on health insurance overhead. If the government takes the $700 billion and spends it on covering the 46 million Americans, we can do this and have money left over. We don’t need to inject any more money into the system. I then mention several ways that we can control costs. Finally, I discussed a few elephants in the room — immigration reform, which I think is intimately associated with health care reform and tort reform. One of the things that I didn’t mention, because of time, was that we should also look at Medicare and Medicaid fraud. How can we reduce the cheating in the system?

I chat with my special guest Brian Katulis, fellow at the Center for American Progress, Middle East expert. We begin the conversation by talking about Pakistan and what’s going on in Pakistan. We talk about this huge refugee crisis that has been caused by the military offensive against the Taliban. We also talk about the internal politics of Iraq and Iran. I appreciate Brian’s knowledge and his time.

I then talk to Rick Newman, Senior business correspondent for U.S. News & World Report. Malls. Rick has a series of columns on the health of our economy by looking at the health of several malls. Currently, malls are dying all across the United States. We talk about how we’ve got way too many retail stores and many of these malls are not going to survive this recession. We also discuss another one of his columns which focuses on several industries that are still don’t have a tough time even after the recession is over. This is a great discussion. I appreciate Rick’s insight into these topics.

This is a fun and informative show. Enjoy!

Special thanks for Miccheckradio who has been great help with my prep!

MAYBE EVERYONE SHOULDN’T HAVE A SAY ...
Conservatives advising the state of Texas on curriculm standards say that civil rights leaders César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall are given too much attention in Texas social studies classes. That’s right— unlike most criticisms finding that minorities get too little coverage in history textbooks, these conservatives think that civil rights leaders get too much attention. To quote one adviser, “”To have César Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin is ludicrous.”

NERD ALERT!
Scientists have given a name to the new element added to the Periodic Table. It’s time to recognize…copernicum! The element, named after astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, will hereby be known by the symbol Cp. It was actually discovered in 1996 through fusion experiments led by Prof. Sigurd Hofmann of the Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany. Office.

Dare to be Stupid
Meghan McCain continues her mission to shake up the GOP with this new line in an interview with Out.com: ““Joe the Plumber — you can quote me — is a dumbass. He should stick to plumbing.”

My special guest this week is constitutional scholar, friend of the show Linda Monk. We spent a good deal of time discussing the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings. Senator Al Franken had an outstanding moment when he asked Judge Sotomayor about the only case on Perry Mason that Berger won, since both for fans of Perry Mason when they were growing up. We have a wide ranging discussion which includes the fraud on Wall Street which seems to have caused a significant portion of our economic downturn. One of her major points is that prosecutions should start from the top down and not from the bottom up. This is a great discussion. Enjoy!