• Guest: The honorable Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
• Last night's Republican debate.
• Guest: Evan Moore, CNSNews. Focus the Nation teach-in.
• Guest: Mark Green, president of Air America Radio.
• Guest: Christy Harvey, Center for American Progress.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Thursday 31 January '08 National show

• Guest: The honorable Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. The eldest child of Robert F. Kennedy. Former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, she served 2 years as deputy assistant Attorney General in President Bill Clinton's administration. "Failing America's Faithful: How Todays Churches are Mixing God with Politics and Losing their Way". She thinks the churches are shifting back towards social justice instead of narrow moral issues. There are challenges to poverty, the middle class and the environment. She and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and her sister are supporting Hillary; Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy branch endorsed Obama. Their family are good at politics because they are used to having to defend their position while listening to and loving the other person despite their wrong-headedness.
• Bumper Music: Last DJ, The, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
• Last night's Republican debate, eating their own. Ignore the tot for tat between Romney and McCain, the most important point is that the party id living in never-never land, deifying Ronald Reagan.
• Site: The Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt Project.
  "The Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt Project is dedicated to giving the Great Communicator credit for the enduring legacy of his Presidency. We favor honoring his vast contribution to our society by naming the national debt after him -- the Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt. For generations to come, when people think of the national debt, they'll think of Ronald Reagan."
• Article: Obama-JFK Comparison Questioned.
  "After the rousing endorsement from the Kennedy family earlier this week, some are questioning the comparison between Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former President John F. Kennedy...

  Critics of the comparison note Kennedy's hawkish foreign policies and his tax-cut policies, which are dramatically different from what Obama, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, is advocating...

  While Kennedy delivered across-the-board tax cuts, Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts.

  "
• Clip: "Yes, I have stated in both debates and state again that I believe in a balanced budget and have supported that concept during my 14 years in the Congress. The only two times when an unbalanced budget is warranted would be during a serious recession and we had that in '58 in an unbalanced budget of $12 billion; or a national emergency where there should be large expenditures for national defense which we had in World War II and during part of the Korean War...
  Third, I think it's possible to gain a $700 million to a billion dollars through tax changes which I believe would close up loopholes on dividend withholding, on expense accounts...
  So in my judgment we would spend more money in this administration on aid to education, we'd spend more money on housing, we'd spend more money and I hope more wisely, on defense than this administration has done, but I believe that the next administration should work for a balanced budget and that would be my intention. Mr. Nixon misstates my figures constantly, which is of course his right, but the fact of the matter is here is where I stand and I just want to have it on the public record." John F Kennedy, "Face-to-Face, Nixon-Kennedy" Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy Third Joint Television-Radio Broadcast, Thursday, October 13, 1960.
• Clip:
  "What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label 'Liberal?' If by 'Liberal' they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of 'Liberal.' But if by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes that we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal'." John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1960, Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination (mp3).
• Bumper Music: The Way Life's Meant to Be, ELO.
• 28 Republicans are leaving, not running in the 2008 election. Representative Tony Davis is the most recent. Incumbents usually win. He's the 5th this week. There are 199 Republicans in the House of Representatives right now, 232 Democrats. That's a 33 person margin. More than 33 Democrats are from largely Republican districts.
• What if people in districts where Edwards is likely to do well, and where many ballots have probably been cast for him already, were to still vote for him? It won't work. Some states reapportion the delegates of those who drop out, and a brokered convention would not be good for the party. We need to wrap it up Super Tuesday so we are not squabbling while McCain is clear.
• Bumper Music: Please Mr. President, Jim Terr, Blue Canyon Productions.
• Book: "Sleepwalking Through History: America in the Reagan Years", Haynes Johnson.
• Site: focusthenation.org. Eban Goodstein.
  "In the next few years, we as a nation will make, or fail to make, critical decisions regarding global warming pollution and clean technology investments. These decisions will have far-reaching and irreversible impacts on the lives of today’s students and the lives of their children. At this moment in time, we owe our young people at least a day of focused discussion about global warming solutions for America.

  Focus the Nation is organizing a national teach-in on global warming solutions for America—creating a dialogue at over a thousand colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses, and directly engaging millions of students and citizens with the nation’s decision-makers. Focus the Nation will culminate January 31st, 2008 in simultaneous educational symposia held across the country. Our intent is to move America beyond fatalism to a determination to face up to this civilizational challenge, the challenge of our generation...

  NATIONAL TEACH-IN: On January 31st, thousands of students on every campus, millions of students nationwide, participate in workshops and panels, brainstorming global warming solutions.

  "
• Article: Global Warming Teach-In Coming to Campuses Nationwide.
• Guest: Evan Moore, CNSNews. Today over 1750 institutions have signed up to talk about what can we do to mitigate the problem of climate change. He says some say it is university-sponsored political rallies, skipping over the science and going straight to solutions which are right out of the Democratic Party candidates' playbooks.
• Bumper Music: Home On The Range, The Freedom Toast.
• The global warming debate. Corporation versus you. How can one person oppose, for example, advertising to smoke. The Supreme Court said that speech = money. Regulation. Thom is a capitalist. Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.. How do we enforce Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka?
• Clip:
  "I have talked to Negro mothers. I have heard them explain, try to explain how they tell their children how they can go into a store and buy a loaf of bread, but then can't go into that store and sit at the counter and get a Coca Cola. This is wrong and we have to do something about it.

  So, under the circumstances, what do we do? Well, what we do is what the Attorney General of the United States did under the direction of the President: Call in the owners of chain stores and get them to take action.

  "
  Richard M. Nixon. Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon Second Joint Radio-Television Broadcast.
• Clip:
  "Well, Mr. Nixon hasn't discussed the two basic questions: What is going to be done and what will be his policy on implementing the Supreme Court decision of 1954? Giving aid to schools technically that are trying to carry out the decision is not the great question. Secondly, what's he going to do to provide fair employment? He's been the head of the Committee on Government Contracts that's carried out two cases, both in the District of Columbia. He has not indicated his support of an attempt to provide fair employment practices around the country, so that everyone can get a job regardless of their race or color. Nor has he indicated that he will support Title III, which would give the Attorney General additional powers to protect Constitutional rights.

  These are the great questions. Equality of education in schools. About 2 percent of our population of white people is illiterate; 10 per cent of our colored population. Sixty to seventy percent of our colored children do not finish high school.

  These are the questions and these areas that the North and South, East and West are entitled to know what will be the leadership of the President in these areas to provide equality of opportunity for employment, equality of opportunity in the field of housing, which could be done on all Federal supported housing by a stroke of the President's pen.

  What will be done to provide equality of education in all sections of the United States? Those are the questions to which the President must establish a moral tone and moral leadership. And I can assure you that if I'm elected President we will do so.

  "
  John F. Kennedy. Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon Second Joint Radio-Television Broadcast.
• Bumper Music: There’s No Business Like Oil Business, Smell the Hooey !
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Article: China plans to halt rain for Beijing Olympics.
• Bumper Music: All I want (I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister), Tom Rush.
• Article: Why This Edwards Voter Is Now Backing Obama.
• Article: Four’s a Crowd.
• Guest: Mark Green, president of Air America Radio, former advocate for New York City, author. He's neutral, loves them both. Assuming McCain will be the Republican nominee. Iraq war. Clinton is stronger in the general election, not the primaries. He was travelling, did not see last night's debate. All the Republicans have problems. McCain has a real heroism story, but is awful on economy, Bush 3, awful on domestic policy, and on foreign policy likes wars. The Scarborough / Buchanan / Olbermann clip. McCain, Clinton, Obama tied today in polls. Each Democrat is 13-15 ahead of Romney. A Republican exit poll said the economy was the main issue for Republicans, Romney has considerable business experience, McCain does not know much about economics, yet McCain won. Parties should catch voters young. Sons are for Obama.
• Bumper Music: What's Bush Got To Do With It?, Us the Band.
• Article: Most liberal.
  "National Journal rates Obama the single "most liberal" member of the Senate last year." (Headlined by Drudge).
• Article: Donors break record to back Obama. (via Drudge).
  
• Article: Obama: #1 Liberal Senator.
• Bumper Music: George Bush Told Lies, Bob Rivers.
• Article: US funds madrassas in Afghanistan.
• Article: 24 Hours After Touting Clean Coal In SOTU, White House Drops Ambitious Clean Coal Project.
• Article: Laura Bush’s popularity drops.
• Guest: Christy Harvey, Director of Strategic Communications at the Center for American Progress, MicCheckradio.org. Soldier suicides at record levels. Lots of small studies abut troops. In upstate New York, the army looked at disability claims and saw that there they got their full share of benefits - the VA had sent people to help them get through paperwork. So the Pentagon told the VA to stop. The US military funding religious madrassas in Afghanistan. Thom has mixed feelings, because otherwise parents would send kids to Pakistan. Afghanistan has never been secular. Interesting given what the right wing says about madrassas and Obama. New power plant. Bizarre. On Monday night Bush pledged to fund new technology coal power capturing emissions. On Tuesday morning he cancelled a project to fund the new technology at Futuregen, Ill. They said it was because the price went up, but that was just inflation. The Department of Energy would not release paperwork for a couple of months. Laura Bush's Pew rating dropped sharply. Where is he now? Randall Tobias, the guy from USAID on the DC madams list. He's up to be head of Indianapolis Airport Authority.
• Bumper Music: Democracy, Dan Fogelberg.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. Bush speech in Las Vegas, he said many people were rescued, and the Taliban have no place to hide. Luger called the situation grave. George Cluny at the UN, ambassador for peace, just back from Darfur and Chad, says there's no equipment such as helicopters. 2.5m displaced. Most of the supplies for Darfur can't get through Kenya from Mombassa. Budget today, Mitch McConnell on floor said concerning the economic growth package, "And so the bullet train speeding relief to Americans quickly became a horse and buggy here in the Senate... As soon as the bill hit the Senate, it started to look a lot like Christmas over here". Harry Reid wants to get back Obama and Hillary to vote. Amendments on mortgage revenue, unemployment, food stamps. Fuel assistance bill. On Wednesday maybe rebates for seniors. LIHEAP - rename it. Bush signed a 15 day extension of the "Protect America" Act. Congressionally chartered commission from 2005 400 page report concerning National Guard readiness. "Propensity -- the desire to enlist in the armed forces -- is at its lowest point in two decades," according to Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick. The judiciary committee want to delay a new assistant Attorney General because they are not getting information.