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Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 30 years. Earlier this year she confronted President Obama during a counter-terrorism speech he was giving at the National Defense University in which she demanded that he shut down the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay and brought up the plight of the hunger strikers. She will call in to the show today to discuss the Obama administrations drone program that sentences individuals to death without due process, has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children, primarily in Pakistan, and has killed at least three US citizens. She has a book out on the subject titled "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control" and she is currently on a book tour and will be in Asheville, NC tonight.
Yesterday we reported that the British Parliament in by a narrow margin voted to prohibit the UK from engaging in direct military strikes on the Syrian government because of alleged chemical weapons use. We also reported that 60% of Americans do not believe the US government should conduct military strikes on Syria and a NBC poll says that 80% of poll respondents believe before the Obama administration acts, it should seek approval from Congress. We will be joined by Caleb Maupin to discuss the proposed US military action against Syria and the national protests against any such action that have been promoted the International Action Center and a coalition of other groups.
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The stakes just got higher for any military action by western powers planning strikes against the Syrian government as Russia and Iran are teaming up to prevent such strikes they say would be in violation of International law. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said in a statement, “Western military action against Syria would be an "open violation" of international laws and "Military action will bring great costs for the region”. The Russians are sending two ships to protect its interest in the region, a missile cruiser and a large anti-submarine vessel, which should arrive in a matter of days according to reports by Reuters. As protest gain momentum in the UK, British Prime Minister David Cameron claimed the UK is “legally entitled to take military action against Syria even if the Security Council denied authorization”.
We reported earlier this week that the South Carolina city council of Columbia passed measures described as criminalizing the homeless to prevent them from sleeping in business districts. The measures would require the Columbia Police to arrest those refusing to go to a homeless shelter and position police nearby to prevent anyone from leaving. However, the city manage and police chief and pushing back against the measure. The State reports, “Interim Police Chief Ruben Santiago said his department cannot transport homeless adults to the riverfront shelter to get services nor can police tell them they would be charged with a nuisance offense should they refuse.”
CNN Money is reporting that fast food workers in 60 cities across the nation walked off the job today in protest of low wages. “Workers from fast food giants McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and Yum Brands-owned KFC are calling on their employers to pay them a minimum of $15 an hour and allow them to form unions without retaliation.” The average fast food worker makes around $18,500 a year which considerably lower than the federal poverty income threshold.
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Republicans and members of the Obama administration seem intent on attacking Syria and are pushing claims that they are certain that the Assad government used chemical weapons on civilians. It is being reported that China and Russia walked out of a UN Security Council Meeting involving planned military strikes against Syria and an Saudi Arabian intelligence officer is said to have threatened terrorist attacks against the Winter Olympics to be held in Russia if the Russians do not agree to military action against the Syrian government.
Numerous polls going as far back as December of 2012, a clear majority of Americans are opposed to entangling the United States in the Syrian civil war. The latest poll from Reuters/Ipsos reflects earlier polls showing 60% of Americans are steadfast against attacking Syria.
Today is the 50th Anniversary of the day Martin Luther King Jr gave his “I have a dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963. Events are being held in Washington, DC in remembrance of the date. President Obama addressed the crowd at the 'Let Freedom Ring' commemoration in Washington D.C.
We will be joined today by Efia Nwangaza of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Leah Bolger Of Veterans for Peace.
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5:03PM EST
A black man says that his family and friends were denied service at Wild Wing Café in Charleston, SC. Michael Brown and his party were made to wait two hours and then told they could not be seated and denied service because another customer felt threatened by their presence. London also said, "The manager looked me dead in the face and said she was refusing us service because she had a right to and simply she felt like it.” USA Today reports that the group had been offered an apology and meals all around and said the restaurant has a meeting planned for later this week with some members of the restaurant party.
Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information Resource Service will join us to talk about a major Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting coming to Charlotte, NC (only meeting in South of 9 meetings nationwide) on radioactive waste regulation and the environmental impact it will have.
Governor Nikki Haley last Friday announced that the state of South Carolina has changed the requirements of a proposed contract to continue credit monitoring for taxpayers who had there personal data stolen by hackers from state computers. Last week, speaking at a cabinet meeting on Information Security, Governor Haley said that data will never be 100% secure.
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Bradley Manning announced last week that he wants to be referred to as Chelsea Manning and has always lived as woman. Wikipedia has renamed the entry for Bradley Manning to Chelsea Manning. As Ryan Kearney wrote at The New Republic "He is not Bradley Manning. She is Chelsea Manning. Deal with it." According to reports, during the court martial trial, Manning’s defense team seemed to suggest that the leaks of classified documents could be blamed on Manning struggling with gender identity issues. Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, was interviewed on The Today Show and addressed several issues related to this issue.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is in Greenville today to announce her bid for re-election in 2014. Protesters led by the state AFL-CIO and the South Carolina Democratic Women's Council have pledged to be on the scene and we hope to have our man Double A the Rock & Roll Diehard who will be in attendance call in and give us a live report. Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin will join Haley when she makes her announcement. SC Senator Tim Scott whom Haley appointed to the senate to replace Jim DeMint will emcee the event.
If we have time, we will check on the latest information available on the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria as pressure is being applied to President Obama to do something more in response even though it is not clear which side may be guilty if indeed chemical weapons were used. UN inspectors are reported to have received gunfire from sniper attacks which disabled one of the vehicles the team was travelling in with UN peace keepers. It is not being reported who was responsible for the sniper attack.
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While it is premature to point fingers at who is responsible for an alleged chemical attack in Syria, NATO allies, including France, Britain and Turkey and pushing for more US involvement in the two year old civil war. However, President Obama stated that he does not expect to have boots on the ground in the war torn country. The President said, "Sometimes what we've seen is that folks will call for immediate action, jumping into stuff that does not turn out well, gets us mired in very difficult situations, can result in us being drawn into very expensive, difficult, costly interventions that actually breed more resentment in the region. The United States continues to be the one country that people expect can do more than just simply protect their borders. But that does not mean that we have to get involved with everything immediately,".
City Council members in Columbia, South Carolina recently voted to criminalize the homeless. According to the city’s “Emergency Homeless Response” report, Columbia has become a “magnet for homeless people,” and that businesses and the area’s safety are suffering as a result, council members agreed on Aug. 14 to give people on the streets the option to either relocate, or get arrested.
The State is reporting that South Carolina’s electric cooperatives have stopped a solar energy forum that was supposed to let people explain how the state can improve rules governing sun power which are described as being the most unfriendly in the nation to customers.
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The FBI may bring criminal charges against individuals at banking giant JP Morgan Chase for manipulating energy trades that amount to stealing from consumers. U.S. Attorney Preet Bhararais said to be focusing on conduct outlined last month in the bank’s $410 million civil settlement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Justice Department is working with the FBI and the bank is also being looked at for possible criminal charges for its actions leading up to the global financials crisis.
A Casper College teacher who possibly lost a teaching job because he ran for Congress seeking to unseat Republican incumbent Cynthia Lummis left the Democratic Party and has joined the Green Party in Wyoming. Chris Henrichsen believes the current political system is broken and he does not believe the Democrats will make the radical changes that need to be made because they benefit from the system as is. Henrichsen will join us on Occupy The Microphone today.
The Department of Justice is seeking once again to protect the former administration from being held accountable for alleged war crimes and other misdeeds. War Is A Crime reports, “In court papers filed today (PDF), the United States Department of Justice requested that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz be granted procedural immunity in a case alleging that they planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law.”
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An Atlanta area community in unincorporated DeKalb County outside Atlanta is counting themselves lucky after no one was injured when an armed man with anger issues walked into an elementary school and barricaded himself in the school office. 20-year-old Michael Brandon Hill was wearing all black and was armed with an AK-47 assault-style rifle when he allegedly fired about six shots at police before surrendering peacefully after they returned fire. The father of one student said Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy definitely needs to upgrade security and that anyone can walk into the school. On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut.
Pfc. Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison by a US military judge for his conviction under the Espionage Act but was acquitted on charges of Aiding the Enemy. Manning, whom many see as whistle-blower leaked classified information to the website Wikileaks to expose what he called the “bloodlust” in Iraq. In response to his 35-year sentence, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued a statement condemning the sentence and said that Manning should have never been prosecuted.
Yesterday we discussed Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda being detained and having property confiscated by UK authorities at an airport on his way from Europe to his home country of Brazil. It is reported today that David Miranda has launched legal action against the British government, which is claiming it was justified to do so under “anti-terrorism” legislation that are under scrutiny and being called into question by the Labour party of the UK.
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The relatives of the 16 Afghans massacred by US soldier Robert Bales are angry that he was sentenced to life in prison instead of being given the death penalty for the killing of their relatives, mostly women and children, on March 11, 2012.
Authorities in the UK raided the Guardian’s office in London to destroy hard drives in an effort to stop future publications of leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. According to news reports. The raid however is not going to stop anymore revelations from coming out about the NSA’s spying program. In related news, the UK Labour party is calling for a review the use of anti-terror powers to detain David Miranda, the partner of a Guardian journalist who interviewed US National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Supporters of the biological father of the Cherokee child dubbed “Baby Veronica” turn out to the state capital in Oklahoma express their support and new revelations appear to show improprieties in the case. Indian Country Today is reporting that an expert used in adopting the child gave a false report on the biological father Dusten Brown and is now recanting.
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A South Carolina man, Shannon Scott, is claiming he should get immunity from prosecution for killing an innocent bystander, Darrell Niles, a 17-year-old student of Keenan High School. According to The State, “Richland County courtroom this week, Scott and his attorney, Todd Rutherford, said Scott fired his weapon from his front yard to protect his daughter, who was being chased by people trying to hurt her.” Darrell Niles was not part of that group and was standing across the street when struck in the head by a bullet fired by Shannon Scott.
Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda was detained by U.K authorities at an airport as he was traveling from Germany back to his home country of Brazil. Greenwald is the reporter who has been working with his source Edward Snowden to publish articles revealing the NSA’s massive spying program. Many see the detainment of David Miranda as state sponsored harassment and further evidence of the abuse of human rights in the so-called global war on terror.
Reports indicate that Egypt’s former President Hosni Mubarak to be freed from jail on the orders of Egyptian judicial officials. Mubarak was removed from power after a popular uprising and he was jailed to face charges the killings of hundreds of protesters during the 2011 uprising. Analyst suspect his release will further inflame the current violence that is a result the removal of democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood after protests. A new Egyptian constitution is in the process of being drafted and it may ban all religious based political parties.
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The custody battle over the Cherokee child dubbed Baby Veronica is far from over. The Governor of Oklahoma where the biological father is a resident has refused to extradite Dusten Brown to South Carolina to face criminal charges for keeping his daughter from Melanie and Matt Capobianco of James Island, S.C., the white couple that adopted her with assistance from the South Carolina Supreme Court. A Cherokee Nation court awarded custody to the biological father.
A similar drama could be in the making as Indian Country Today is reporting that another Indian child from Oklahoma has been "illegally placed for adoption" in South Carolina. Raymond W. Godwin a Greenville, South Carolina-based attorney representing the Capobianco is also representing the couple trying to adopt the second child.
The City of Richmond in California is contemplating using eminent domain to save homes for families and is being threatened by the Federal Housing Finance Agency if they do so by cutting the city off from mortgages. Cornell Law professor Robert C. Hockett says the federal agency is acting outside its authority by threatening such action.
Politico is reporting, “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called a report that the National Security Agency broke privacy rules thousands of times “extremely disturbing” on Friday, saying actions must be taken.” This report follows reports that the NSA was illegally sharing data with the DEA and IRS to target Americans for alleged actions that have nothing to do with national security or terrorism.
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Despite the turmoil in Iraq with 1,000 Iraqis killed in the month of July alone, the Pentagon is set to deliver $2.7 billion dollars worth of weapons to the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki. Critics warn that with the instability that exists in the country and an increased Al Qaeda presence, the weapons that include 681 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and 40 truck-mounted launchers, as well as 3 Hawk anti-aircraft batteries with 216 Hawk missiles, could easily fall into the wrong hands.
President Obama announced yesterday that the US military is cancelling joint exercises with the Egyptian military citing deepening violence and turmoil in the country as the military backed-interim government continues its assault against supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi who was removed from office and arrested despite winning a democratic election. This follows US Sec. of State John Kerry’s condemnation of the escalating violence in Egypt.
It appears that states that have legalized same sex marriage are luring residents and tax payers away from states that have not. “The Supreme Court ruling will force some states to examine whether it’s worth losing out on talent and businesses that are attracted to areas that allow same-sex marriages”, said Richard Florida who is a professor at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management. Yesterday the Pentagon announced that it will extend benefits such as health coverage and base housing to members of the military in same sex marriages with legal certificates of marriage.
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Jil Littlejohn of the Urban League of the Upstate will be calling in today The Urban League of the Upstate works to provide economic empowerment, educational opportunities and the guarantee of civil rights for the underserved in America.
The father of a Cherokee child has been arrested for not returning his child to a white couple who adopted the child from her mother who did not tell the father she was pregnant. Cherokee Nation member Dusten Brown asserted his parental rights months after learning of the child’s adoption. A family court judge had ruled in the father’s favor but the South Carolina Supreme Court allowed the adoption to go through and Mr. Brown, who is a member of the US military, posted a bond $10,000 and refuses to give the whereabouts of his daughter.
Speaking of parental rights, 'Lost Boys' actor Jason Patric, who lost a battle for custody of a son conceived using invitro fertilization is urging California lawmakers to change laws and afford greater legal rights to sperm donors. If men are going to sue for rights to IVF babies, what about the rights of egg donors? Many birth mothers of IVF babies are not the actual genetic mothers of IVF offspring, so what if egg donors start suing for their visitation rights? The whole issue of invitro fertilization babies is a legal minefield waiting to go BOOM. The technology has outpaced the law, and now the bill is coming due.
The Egyptian government is reporting that at least 95 people were killed after security forces stormed “protest camps” of supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi. The Muslim Brotherhood which supports Morsi and protestors say hundreds have died. The 17-year-old daughter of leading Muslim Brotherhood figure Mohamed el-Beltagy is being reported among the dead. Family members say the teen, Asmaa el-Beltagy was shot in the back and chest.
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151 people were arrested yesterday in the continuing Moral Monday protests being held in North Carolina. The North Carolina NAACP has been leading the way in collaboration with other groups in organizing weekly protests, which continue to pick up steam against the Republican dominated legislature’s draconian policies. This week, Governor Patrick McCrory signed a Voter ID bill into law that has been described as the worst in the nation for which the state has now been sued over.
Former attorney and social activist Lynne Stewart’s appeal for compassionate release was denied last week by Manhattan Federal Judge John Koeltl who said that further imprisonment while suffering from metastatic cancer did not rise to the level of cruel and unusual punishment. Lynne Stewart is 73 years old, and, according to the people who know her, she's being eaten alive by breast cancer. Her husband Ralph Poynter will be calling in to the program.
Now that the NYPD’s controversial Stop & Frisk policy has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, observers say that the man tasked with overseeing revisions has a difficult task ahead.
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Republicans are still fighting old battles and are threatening to shut down the federal government just to defund so-called "Obamacare". The President recently took them to task for having an "Ideological Fixation" on defunding the Affordable Care Act.
With the US government stepping up its drone attacks on suspected Al Qaeda members in Yemen, Ron Paul asked the question on whether or not the United States is creating more militants than they are killing. He also said the "U.S. is sending mixed signals by attacking al-Qaeda in Yemen while supporting al-Qaeda linked rebels fighting in Syria."
Attorney General Eric Holder said the US Justice Department is altering its drug war policy and pushing the removal of mandatory sentences in drug cases. However, some critics say that reducing the amount of time that non-violent so-called drug offenders spend in prison does nothing to slow down the rate of mass incarceration and that an end of drug prohibition is the only logical solution. Last year, members of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition delivered a letter to AG Eric Holder urging the Obama administration to respect state laws that legalize and regulate marijuana.
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Eric Wood of Another Voice is joining us in studio today.
Rep. John Lewis was one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s top lieutenants during the civil rights era of the sixties. Lewis suffered many beatings while participating in acts of civil disobedience in defiance of the nation’s Jim Crow laws showing great courage. Dr. King was a victim of unconstitutional domestic spying and wiretapping as a target of the FBI’s illegal COINTELPRO operations that targeted Black leaders and leftist groups. Rep. Lewis recently interviewed by The Guardian said Edward Snowden, the NSA whistle-blower, was appealing to "a higher law" when he disclosed top-secret documents showing the extent of NSA surveillance of both Americans and foreigners. Less than twenty-four hours after praising Snowden’s disclosures as an act of civil disobedience, Rep. Lewis seems to have lost his courage and began walking back his comments.
The President had an unscheduled meeting today with civil libertarians and top executives of tech giants including Apple, AT&T and Google. The meeting was leaked by an administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly on the meeting and only leaked the information on the condition of anonymity. The official stated that, "The meeting was part of the ongoing dialogue the president has called for on how to respect privacy while protecting national security in a digital era,” No word yet on if the administration will seek to investigate who leaked information about the meeting to reporters.
Yesterday we reported that the ATF was entrapping people with low-level criminal convictions by enticing them to participate in robbing drug houses that did not exist. The FBI is now under scrutiny for approving the commission of thousands of crimes every year by its informants. "This is all being operated clandestinely. Congress doesn't even have the information, I think there's a problem here, and we should have full disclosure to Congress " said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., who has sponsored a bill that would require all federal agencies to notify lawmakers about the most serious crimes their informants commit.
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Guest: Local entrepreneur Carolyn Bourassa joins us today to discuss Natural Choice Apothecary. Ulrich and Carolyn are the brains and brawn behind The Natural Choice Apothecary. They are a crunchy, vegan, hippie family that makes an assortment of organic bath & body products. They are also involved with a local domestic abuse shelters and want to tell you how you can help them "Pay It Forward" with their fundraising efforts.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives which is supposed to be enforcing the nation's gun laws is being accused of enticing over 1,000 individuals to commit drug related crimes with promises of a huge payoff. Undercover agents seek out individuals with prior low-level criminal convictions and entice them to participate in plots to rob non-existence drug houses. Some prosecutors have refused to participate in these operations and judges state the expensive sting operations border on entrapment and have resulted in several suspects being killed.
The Kurds in Syria have tried to stay out of the war, but Al Qaeda seems determined to punish them and force them to get involved. Al Qaeda is said to bombing entire Kurdish villages, men, women and children. US allies, the Turks are more than likely thrilled to see genocide practiced against the Kurds. Al Qaeda weapons are being supplied by the Syria opposition who in turn are being supplied by the US and Europe. How can we support the opposition while simultaneously demanding justice for Kurds?
JP Morgan Chase is facing criminal and civil investigations related to allegations that they defrauded investors with shoddy mortgage securities. The United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of California has “preliminary concluded” that JPMorgan Chase flouted federal laws with its sale of sub-prime mortgage securities from 2005 to 2007. Skeptics doubt if the bank, like many other banks, will face true justice. Other investigations have not resulted in any prosecutions of bank officers and one commentator says these "criminal investigations" will amount to nothing more than insignificant punishments and petty fines will be levied after no-contest pleas have been negotiated to protect the guilty. If the federal regulators were serious, top-level individuals would have already been prosecuted, finance monopolies would have been broken up and Congress would have already reinstated Glass-Steagle.
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President Obama cancelled his planned summit in Moscow over Russia’s decision to grant limited political asylum to NSA private security contractor whistle-blower Edward Snowden. The President however did make his appearance on the tonight show with Jay Leno to engage in double speak including outright lies about NSA domestic spying. When asked about it the President said, “We don’t have a domestic spying program.”
Companies involved in Fracking in the state of Pennsylvania have a gag order in place that prevents two children whom fell victim to the side effects of the controversial methods of extracting natural gas from underground, from ever talking about their experience. Legal experts have said lifetime gag orders on children are unheard of.
In local news, the Greenville Police Department is under scrutiny after failing to notify the public for four days that a gang of 10 to 12 teens robbed another teen at gunpoint who was riding his bike through Falls Park. While declining media interviews, the police issued a statement via email, which reads, “As for releasing that information, we don't make it a habit to release everything that comes through our office. We release it when we get a request from the media or when we need help in solving a crime. The investigation was too early to ask for help because we had not got any good suspect descriptions."
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5:03PM EST
The alleged Ft. Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, made opening statements in his long awaited trial for killing thirteen US soldiers and wounding thirty-two others in 2009 said, “war is an ugly thing with death and devastation on both sides”. Major Hasan is representing himself at his court martial and is confined to a wheelchair after he was paralyzed from the chest down when Ft. Hood base police shot him to stop his attack. Hasan a Muslim did not want to be deployed to Afghanistan because he did not want to be forced to kill other Muslims.
The North Carolina General Assembly is done for the year, must be nice to take off work with five months left in the calendar year. However, the Moral Monday protests that have been going on in Raleigh will continue as progressives in North Carolina take their protests on the road. At the protests in Asheville, it is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 protesters turned out to demonstrate against a number of recent laws passed by Republicans who control all three branches of the North Carolina state government.
On August 4, a planned online protest against Twitter trolls sending violent tweets to women on the popular social media website backfired somewhat. British journalist Caitlin Moran was calling for feminist to log off Twitter for a day but a backlash developed which questioned silencing women online and offline would be giving in to misogynists. Some women took issue with the protest as many felt it was born out of white privilege and “it alienated and excluded marginalized women -- poor women, transgender women, women of color, etc. -- who don't have the luxury of choosing to fall silent”.
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CNN has said it has uncovered new information about CIA agents who were in Libya at the time the US Consulate was attacked in Benghazi. “Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.”
Hugo Schwyzer who is a professor at Pasadena City College and is best known as the "porn professor," allegedly tried to commit suicide last week according to an interview he gave LA Weekly. Who tries to commit suicide and then gives an interview about it the next day? He cited the social media fallout from a sexting relationship with a porn star and multiple affairs with other women ending his marriage, which led him into a deep depression. Schwyzer is best known for his writings on women, which garnered the title of “male feminist”, but feminist have had issues with his brand of feminism.
Last week a massive cloud of black dust from piles of petroleum coke, which is a by-product of tar sands oil, which are illegally stored in the city of Detroit by Koch Carbon, a company owned by the Koch brothers. Russia Today reports that the “dust cloud which flew over Detroit and into Windsor this week was found to carry elevated traces of lead, sulfur, zinc and vanadium, which is possibly cancer-causing in humans in prolonged or elevated exposure, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a France-based organization.”
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Black Ops Protective Services security guard Joey Ryan Johnson Jr. stands accused of shooting and killing Cynthia Lomax as she and a passenger in her vehicle were driving away from a nightclub in Anderson, SC. However, Greenville activist Traci Fant says Black Ops Protective Services has a history of excessive force and "numerous complaints about unfair treatment, racial profiling, excessive use of force, illegal search and seizure". She has a petition on Change.Org calling for the State of South Carolina to investigate the company.
Traci Fant who is in studio with us today will in addition to discussing the issues surrounding Black Ops Protective Services, will discuss her recent trip to Sanford, Florida to attend the Zimmerman murder trial and has organized local rallies seeking justice for Trayvon Martin, the teen shot and killed by George Zimmerman in February of 2012.
In other news, while the US Government is issuing travel alerts warning of potential terrorist attacks from Al Qaeda, a US auditor has been warning that US taxpayer money has been flowing to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and the US military is ignoring it.
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We are joined in studio today by Efia Nwangaza.
Glen Greenwald seems constantly finding himself defining what journalism is in relation to government leaks. On Anderson Cooper's program, he went up against Jeffrey "I trust the government" Toobin in debate over the sentencing of Pfc. Bradley Manning.
Speaking of whistle-blowers, NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has been granted one year of asylum by the Russian government. In support of the news Wikileaks tweeted, "We would like to thank the Russian people and all those others who have helped to protect Mr. Snowden. We have won the battle – now the war."
In response to Republican Steve King’s assertion that undocumented youth were more likely to be drug smugglers with “calves the size of cantaloupes” from hauling marijuana bales than to be high achieving students, young undocumented immigrants hand delivered cantaloupes to 224 members of Congress today. Twenty year old activist Jose Diaz told reporters that “They always think of us as drug dealers, but they never think of us as Americans."
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Get the smartphone App for iPhone & Android from our audio blog
Catch us in the Upstate of SC on 105.7FM & 910AM
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