Helen Thomas. then Brad Friedman. Up now.

[SophieZ]

It's your world. Understand it!

April 23, 2006: The Monitor


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<> 6:00 pm CST -- HEADLINES

<> ~ 6:10 pm CST -- HELEN THOMAS - White House Press Corps



Helen Thomas speaks with Monitor co-host Mark Bebawi about the role of the
press, her reasons for still having hope, the relationship between media and
power (and media and people), and the extent to which the Iraq war burned the
press corps.

Long known as the dean of the White House press corps, Helen Thomas at age 84
has covered every President since John F. Kennedy. She is now a columnist
for Hearst newspapers. She previously worked for wire service UPI for 57 years,
until it was taken over by an entity tied to Sun Myung Moon's Unification
Church.

She was the first woman officer of the National Press Club. In 1998 she
received the International Women's Media Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.
She has traveled around the world several times with Presidents Nixon, Ford,
Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and both George Bushes.

In 2002, she made an off-the-record comment about George W. Bush that became
widely quoted: "This is the worst President ever. He is the worst President in
all of American history." She has acknowledged saying it, but would rather
it had been left off the record. Since then, a number of historians have
agreed with her.

Thomas was not been allowed to ask a question of George W. Bush in the press
conferences for three years. That drought was ended, finally, a month ago.

BOOK:
Thanks for the Memories, Mr. President : Wit and Wisdom from the Front Row at
the White House (2002)

ARTICLE:
"Lap Dogs of the Press," by Helen Thomas, The Nation, posted March 15, 2006
(March 27, 2006 issue), http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060327/thomas

Starts out: "Of all the unhappy trends I have witnessed--conservative swings
on television networks, dwindling newspaper circulation, the jailing of
reporters and "spin"--nothing is more troubling to me than the obsequious press
during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. They lapped up everything the Pentagon
and White House could dish out--no questions asked."

The article ends: "I honestly believe that if reporters had put the spotlight
on the flaws in the Bush Administration's war policies, they could have saved
the country the heartache and the losses of American and Iraqi lives. It is
past time for reporters to forget the party line, ask the tough questions and
let the chips fall where they may."


<> ~ 6:35 pm CST -- HOUSTON SOCIAL FORUM - April 29-30
We will briefly talk with a representative of the Houston Social Forum, which
will take place in Houston on April 29-30. The forum is a regional event
dedicated to the idea that another world is possible. Workshops, open space,
music, films and networking with several hundred other attendees will be
available.

INFO: http://www.houstonsocialforum.org


<> ~ 6:40 pm CST -- BRAD FRIEDMAN on honest elections



Monitor co-host Pokey Anderson will talk with Brad Friedman about the latest
developments in the continuing story of citizens attempting to get
transparent, recountable elections.

After just the first few primary elections this spring, numerous serious
breakdowns of electronic voting have happened. John Gideon of VotersUnite.org has
predicted a train wreck as more elections happen with unreliable, nonsecure
election equipment supplied by nonresponsive, incompetent voting equipment
companies. (See http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002673.htm)

Just a list of the lawsuits is mindboggling: Alaska, California, Florida,
Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas. There
are a number of stockholder lawsuits against Diebold. On Thursday, the Oregon
Secretary of State announced that they have filed a complaint against the
largest election vendor in the country, Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S)
for breach of contract.

The latest chapter in the continuing investigation of what happened in the
Ohio 2004 election is a gun with ever more smoke. You may recall that Warren
County was the scene of a level 10 terror alert (which the FBI later
disavowed), and the media and public were locked out of observing vote counting at the
end of the day. Warren County and two contiguous Ohio counties "provided more
than Bush's entire margin in the Buckeye State: Bush won Ohio by 118,000, and
132,000 votes were supplied in these three southwestern Republican counties,"
writes Bob Fitrakis (http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2006/1355 )

Richard Hayes Phillips has examined actual ballots and run the numbers again
for Warren County. The findings are anything but reassuring. ("Stacking the
Decks in Warren County," Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D., 4/18/06, The Free
Press,
http://www.freepress.org/images/columns/Ballots-HP.pdf )

Brad Friedman has his eye on all of these developments. He is managing
editor of the popular progressive website http://bradblog.com where he has broken
innumerable stories over the last year or so on. He also broadcasts on radio,
and writes at Arianna Huffington's site. He is also the co-founder of
VelvetRevolution.us, an umbrella organization of citizens groups taking on everything
from election reform to media reform to the war in Iraq. Last August, Brad
broadcast over 50 live hours of radio from Camp Casey in Crawford, TX.

WEBSITES: http://bradblog.com, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-friedman

QUOTES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Howard Dean, April 19, 2006
on Electronic Voting Machines,
Diebold and Otherwise...

"These machines are a problem. This is not some Internet conspiracy; this is
a serious problem that faces American democracy. These machines are not
reliable and they shouldn't be used. We should not be using machines in this country
where the results of the vote can't be verified after the fact. Period. Any
machines." -- DNC Chairman, Gov. Howard Dean, 4/19/06,
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002722.htm


Molly Ivins, interview excerpts,
March 13, 2006 on KPFT's The Monitor

PUBLICALLY FINANCED ELECTIONS
Molly Ivins: "The money in politics has gotten out of control. There is a
solution. It's public campaign finance. What we have is government of the
special interests, by special interests, and for special interests."

ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES
Pokey Anderson: Two years ago you said the problems with electronic voting
machines are "numerous and grave." What do you think now?

Molly Ivins: Well, I think, it seems to me we've done very little to prevent
ourselves from continuing right down the same foolish path, for use of these
machines without a paper trail. You know, it's not hard to make them so that
you can check if people's votes are recorded as they wish. You can actually
create a paper trail without great difficulty. It does not require a mechanical
genius, extraordinary engineering feat, and is not terribly expensive. And
why that wouldn't be a minimum requirement for buying those machines is beyond
me.

Pokay Anderson: Well, Diebold is known to make paper trails for their ATM
machines! Actually, some of the people who've looked at what happened in Ohio
after the 2004 election have said that the audits -- once you let them go into
that black hole with election officials guarding the paper, the audits may go
astray.

Molly Ivins: Well, I normally -- being a cheerful soul, I would say, "Oh, you
know, no we mustn't be paranoid." But in point of fact Ohio is a beautiful
example. And it seems to me that this should be one of those things where it
doesn't matter what your politics are, you wouldn't want to be cheated in that
way. It's one of those things where it's very easy to put yourself in the
other fellow's shoes, and see how it would feel if they did it to you. Which of
course these machines are perfectly capable of doing. And I must say in Ohio
the people in charge of the elections were so reckless and feckless you'd be
hard-pressed not to suspect them of wrongdoing. ...

Molly Ivins: I realize that this is taken as practically a sign of disloyalty
on its own. But you know the Canadians do this much better than we do. And
it's real simple. They all write it out. They go and they make marks with a
pencil.


CO-HOSTS: Mark Bebawi and Pokey Anderson.
ENGINEER: Byron Jackson

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ARCHIVES of the past 60 days are now at:
http://archive.kpft.org Just look for MONITOR and the date of the show,
and you can listen or download for later.

April 16
-- JONATHAN LANDAY - national security journalist, on Iran
-- MOLLY IVINS - veteran journalist, on politics

April 9
-- KEVIN PHILLIPS on oil, debt, and theocracy
-- RAY McGOVERN on Plame, Iran

April 2
-- KPFT Local News reporter LISA COHEN on the Enron trial
-- ANDREW GUMBEL, author of Steal This Vote, reviews the history of American
stolen elections

March 26
-- acclaimed investigative reporter SEYMOUR HERSH: September 11 to Iraq
(part two)
-- ION SANCHO, Florida election official who invited a hack team to test his
election machines. They waltzed right in and stole the test election. Also,
a clip from Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti, telling how he did it.

March 19
-- CYNTHIA ENLOE - on globalization and feminism (part two)
-- acclaimed investigative reporter SEYMOUR HERSH: September 11 to Iraq
(part one)

March 12
-- IMAD KHADDURI - looking at nuclear capabilities around the world
-- CYNTHIA ENLOE - on the macho military, Part One

March 5
-- JONATHAN LANDAY - national security journalist, on developments in Iraq
-- CHRISTOPHER UGGEN - how we disenfranchise 5 million Americans (ex-felons)

February 26
--PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, asst. secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan
administration, on reasons to impeach Bush.
-- WARREN STEWART of www.VoteTrustUSA.org, on progress in election
transparency.

[TomInTib]

1. I was listening to KPFT when they were bombed (both times)

I really miss that station.

[SophieZ]

2. No need to miss it. Listen online.

www.kpft.org -- available 24/7