If It Were Up To Me....

A wonderful singer songwriter named Cheryl Wheeler has a song called "If It Were Up To Me." I play it on the radio too often. And I will, unfortunately, be playing it tonight.

I first played it on the air in 1999, after two kids opened fire on their fellow classmates, killing 12 of them and a teacher, and injuring many more, at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO.

I played it eight years later, almost to the day, when a mentally unstable student at Virgina Tech terrorized a building on campus, and killing 32 people and wounding many others before killing himself.

Although music is one of my greatest joys, I've never taken pleasure in playing "If It Were Up To Me," as it's always in response to a crazed person with a gun.

Today, at the "soldier readiness facility" inside the world's largest military base, Ft. Hood in Texas, US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly began shooting. At last count, 12 of his victims have died; 31 more are wounded.

I don't know if it's irony or somehow related to his alleged actions today, the fact that Hasan is a graduate of Virginia Tech. So many thoughts spinning through my mind, and I'm sure yours too. We'll talk about it tonight.

Initial reports said that one shooter was killed, and two or three other suspects were either in custody or at large. We've now learned that Hasan likely acted alone and that he is still very much alive. Perhaps we'll be able to get some idea of what goes on inside the crazed mind of a person who'd do such a thing.

Hasan might be able to give us more answers into his own state of mind. He's an Army psychiatrist, who spent many hours counseling soldiers upon their return from Iraq and Afghanistan, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder at Walter Reed Medical Center.

If It Were Up to Me
Words and Lyrics by:
Cheryl Wheeler

Maybe it's the movies, maybe it's the books
Maybe it's the bullets, maybe it's the real crooks
Maybe it's the drugs, maybe it's the parents
Maybe it's the colors everybody's wearin
Maybe it's the President, maybe it's the last one
Maybe it's the one before that, what he done
Maybe it's the high schools, maybe it's the teachers
Maybe it's the tattooed children in the bleachers
Maybe it's the Bible, maybe it's the lack
Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the crack
Maybe it's the hairdos, maybe it's the TV
Maybe it's the cigarettes, maybe it's the family
Maybe it's the fast food, maybe it's the news
Maybe it's divorce, maybe it's abuse
Maybe it's the lawyers, maybe it's the prisons
Maybe it's the Senators, maybe it's the system
Maybe it's the fathers, maybe it's the sons
Maybe it's the sisters, maybe it's the moms
Maybe it's the radio, maybe it's road rage
Maybe El Nino, or UV rays
Maybe it's the army, maybe it's the liquor
Maybe it's the papers, maybe the militia
Maybe it's the athletes, maybe it's the ads
Maybe it's the sports fans, maybe it's a fad
Maybe it's the magazines, maybe it's the internet
Maybe it's the lottery, maybe it's the immigrants
Maybe it's taxes, big business
Maybe it's the KKK and the skinheads
Maybe it's the communists, maybe it's the Catholics
Maybe it's the hippies, maybe it's the addicts
Maybe it's the art, maybe it's the sex
Maybe it's the homeless, maybe it's the banks
Maybe it's the clearcut, maybe it's the ozone
Maybe it's the chemicals, maybe it's the car phones
Maybe it's the fertilizer, maybe it's the nose rings
Maybe it's the end, but I know one thing.
If it were up to me, I'd take away the guns.

(P) October 1, 1997

Penrod And Higgins Music / Amachrist Music ACF Music Group International Copyright Reserved

Unfortunately, I have the song ready to play, once again, tonight.

Also on tonight's program, I'll be joined by Christy Harvey of the Center for American Progress with a look at some of the other stories of the day.

And I'll talk with Diane Havens, one of the co-founders of HearTheBill.org, a place you can go to hear volunteer voiceover artists read the text of HR 3962 "The Affordable Health Care for America Act".

As always, I hope you'll listen tonight (11pm-1am ET) by clicking here. And participate in the conversation by calling 866-303-2270.

One Big Day, Two Big Shows!

It's a busy day today. The country is reflecting on President Barack Obama, one year after we made history by electing him our nation's 44th leader. I'm celebrating my 50th birthday today with two shows on this auspicious anniversary.

From 3-6pm ET, I'll be guest hosting The Randi Rhodes Show. What an honor, and a great birthday gift from a woman who inspired me to enter the realm of talk radio.

I'll be taking your calls at 866-87-RANDI throughout the three hours, during which we'll be joined by various guests weighing in too.

DC insider and The Hill columnist Brent Budowsky penned two columns this week, both taking a hard look at Obama then vs. now. Check out yesterday's "Come Home, Mr. President" and Monday's "Voters Are Not Stupid."

Howie Klein, the man behind DownWithTyranny.com and the Blue America PAC, will join in for a look at yesterday's off-year election day, and we'll discuss whether or not the outcomes are a reflection of Obama's performance.

And Ryan Grim will check in from Huffington Post with the latest in the fight for health care reform. Is the president doing enough to enact real change? Did Nancy Pelosi reinstate the Kucinich amendment when she released the "manager's amendment" late last night?

I look forward to your thoughts this afternoon too!

Tonight, we'll end the day with my regular Air America radio program, from 11pm-1am ET. I've pre-recorded it so I can celebrate my 50th with some friends and family. But I hope you'll tune in for an in-depth and spirited conversation with Ralph Nader about his new book, "Only the Super Rich Can Save Us" and how his work of fiction could, possibly, become reality!

And we'll wrap up the day with Russ Baker, who explained in "What Obama is Up Against" on truthout.org some of the hidden factors affecting the Obama - and every- presidency.

You can actually listen to both shows today on the AAR stream, as Air America carries the Randi Rhodes show on their Washington DC station.

Thanks for making my 50th a very happy birthday indeed!

Election Day 2009 and God

What do those two things have in common? Other than the fact that all wining candidates will probably thank the man in the sky, they'll both be discussed on my show tonight!

Let's start with election day. OK, it's an off year, but there are a few important contests. The gubernatorial races in both VA and NJ might signal a resurgence for Republicans. The VA race was called almost immediately after the polls closed, as Republican Bob McDonnell handily defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds. Perhaps it was Deeds' name that sunk him.

NJ, at the time of this writing, is still too close to call.

Maine voted today on medical marijuana and marriage equality. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will find out if he will win a third term (money has it's advantages), and the nation's eyes are, unfortunately focused on the strange race in the 23rd District, where the teabaggers endorsed a carpetbagger right winger instead of the Republican candidate, who finally dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democrat!

Ahh, politics. Jack Rice, my Air America colleague will join me at the top of the show to bring us all the latest returns.

Then I'll be joined by one of my favorite guests. Frank Schaeffer's new book, Patience With God --Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) hit stores last week.

Frank's father, Francis Schaeffer was the founder of the religious right movement, and Frank was right by his side... until he saw the light, so to speak. He wrote of that experience in his last book, Crazy For God-- How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) Of It Back.

And, if time permits, we'll take a listen down memory lane, with an interview I did with Shirley Maclaine two years ago. She had just written a book which contained a brief passage about Dennis Kucinich and UFO's. Tim Russert had asked Kucinich about it in a presidential debate, and I asked her about that question!

Join us tonight from 11pm-1am ET on Air America! Click here to listen live, and call in at 866-303-2270!

Milestones and Reflections

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 is quickly approaching. I will be fifty years old.

It's at these major milestones that we tend to pause for reflection. For me, a number of milestones have converged. This is not my typical Radio or Not newsletter. It's a bit more personal in nature than I usually get. But I hope you'll read on as I indulge in some mid-life reflection.

I recently wrote about my mom, on the 30th anniversary of her passing. I was an idealistic and, in many ways, naive young woman, a scant two weeks away from turning 20. On the verge of leaving my teens behind and entering adulthood, I was catapulted into learning one of life's toughest lessons all too soon.

The world kept turning, but it was a new era, my life after mom. On my 20th birthday, November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, beginning a crisis in which 53 hostages were held for 444 days. I remembered thinking, as I watched this unfold, that my mother would never know about that.

A year later, on my 21st birthday, Ronald Reagan was elected president. Milestones and Reflections.

Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in the primary that year. I honestly don't have any memories of that, but I can now only imagine how differently things might have turned out had Ted Kennedy become president. I believe the world would be a much better place today.

I wasn't politically involved as a young adult. I was aware, but not involved. I graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in broadcasting, and soon after moved to NY to pursue a radio career.

Mom never heard me on the radio; that part of my life happened after mom. Aware but not involved, I moved from my first NY radio job (producing the very conservative Bob Grant Show at WMCA) to the pop culture/music world, working with Jim Kerr at WPLJ. In 1987, I headed west, out to Los Angeles, for a man. The relationship lasted a year, but Southern California became my home for fourteen years. My life was music and FM radio, when music radio still held the promise of creativity.

Perhaps some day I'll write a book. My first job in LA was producing the Phil Hendrie morning show at KLSX. Yes, the same Phil Hendrie who had great success years later with his very creative shtick, arguing with himself as the colorful characters he created.

The world kept turning and Bill Clinton was elected president November 3, 1992. Ahh, the Mark & Brian years. About a year after I moved to Los Angeles, a morning duo also arrived. Mark & Brian had a successful morning show in Birmingham, Alabama, and were brought to LA to do something different.

They were unique. A couple of overgrown kids who tried to crack each other up every morning. It was endearing. When they hit the air, I was working at KNX-FM (LA's Mellow Rock), which then became LA's other oldies station, KODJ.

Finally, in early 1990, I was hired to produce the show.

Radio was much less corporate back then.. KLOS was, at the time, owned by Cap Cities/ABC. The Mark & Brian Program was FUN. We did silly things like "stealing" the Bob's Big Boy statue from in front of the restaurant on La Cienega Blvd. and dressing it up like Elvis, and putting it on the top of the Capital Records building so the whole city could pay tribute to "the King". (And, of course, Elvis always wanted to be on Capital Records!)

The Elvis Bob had a long life... he became Franken Bob and Dracu Bob for successive Halloweens, and was the star of the M&B Drive In movie events, at which we'd show double features of the scariest movies.

He became Evel Bob for a trip to Vegas when hundreds of listeners, Tom Jones and Evel Knevil himself were on hand as we launched the Bob over the fountains at Caesar's Palace.

And we threw skydiving Bob out of a plane, for the thousands of listeners who trekked out to the desert for this bit of live on air silliness.

Music was secondary, but we were allowed the freedom from KLOS's classic rock format to bring all kinds of acts into the studio for our #1 by a huge margin morning show. We had them all... from Bon Jovi to James Taylor to Lyle Lovett to Pete Townshend (pictured below) who led a slew of listeners with their guitars in hand in a parking lot play-along, so they could tell their grandkids they played guitar with Townshend, and more than I can recount here. And many of them took us up on our invitations to perform at the annual Mark & Brian Christmas Show, which was staged, produced and aired live from 6-10am.

Looking back on those days, I'm amazed at what I was able to pull off as the lone producer of that show. It was pre-internet, and before every desk was home to a PC. "My" computer was actually delivered the day I left KLOS to cross the street to help launch a new radio station, fm 101.9 KSCA.

I had actually decided to leave KLOS about six months before I did. Howard Stern had come to town about midway through my four year run with M&B. He was great at entering a new market and targeting the top morning show in town. He came at Mark and Brian with guns blazing, accusing them of copying his act. Honestly, that accusation couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, they never listened to him - or any other morning show. And second, their act was nothing like his. Although there was some sexual content, it was mostly fun, not creepy. We didn't have naked women in the studio (except for the time they had someone make a mold of my friend Andrea's breasts before she went for breast reduction surgery.)

Click here for an audio trip down memory lane, from the M&B days.

But Stern did succeed in knocking them out of first place, and bringing lots of tension to the show.

I got into radio in the first place because of my love for music. When I had to choose a major for college, the only thing that really interested me was radio, because I figured I could keep going to concerts and listening to the music I loved. But, of course, I have fairly eclectic taste in music, and no commercial radio stations played what I liked!

That is, until around 1994, as a new format was just starting to pop up in some cities. KBCO in Boulder, Colorado had actually been around for a while, and is still considered one of the founders of the Triple A (Adult Album Alternative) format. Dennis Constantine had been the Program Director and was now consulting other such stations.

I had reached out to him, longing to work at a radio station that actually played the music about which I was passionate! After he responded to my letter with a standard "let me know when you're in town, and we'll talk," I flew out to Boulder to meet with him. I learned that Constantine had been speaking with the late, and greatly missed, Bill Ward, GM of LA's KLIT, the last remaining station in the Golden West Broadcasters group owned by Gene Autry.

The weekend of July 4, 1994 saw the launch of the new fm101.9, Southern California's Album Alternative! We made magic. KSCA was my favorite radio station ever, and those 2 1/2 years remain among the happiest in my professional life.

At KSCA, I got to interview some of my biggest idols


(Jackson Browne, Ray Davies)













and introduce listeners to others (Dave Matthews first LA radio interview, and
Ben Folds Five's first one too!)

Unfortunately, Bill Clinton threw a wrench in the industry. He signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law, which did away with all the ownership rules of broadcast stations. The era of consolidation had begun, and brought with it the end of local, creative. adventurous radio.

In February of 2007, owners Gene and Jackie Autry sold KSCA to Entravision, who changed the programming to a Spanish language format.

I moved to a radio and record trade magazine, the now-defunct Album Network, where I wrote about music, then down to San Diego for a stint as co-host of the 91X "Brand X Morning Show", when I heard that Clear Channel (who had now grown to gargantuan size during that consolidation frenzy) was going to flip two small signals in Santa Monica and Newport Beach to Triple A.

They brought me back up to Los Angeles to be Music Director and afternoon host at Channel 103.1.

Before Bill Clinton's monstrous gaffe, companies were permitted to own one AM, one FM and one TV signal in a market, with a cap of 40 stations total. After the Telecom Act became law, companies were, and still are, (generally speaking) allowed 8 stations in a single market, with no cap on the total number of stations they can own. Clear Channel now owns somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 radio stations!

By 2000, after merging with yet another company, Clear Channel owned more than their limit of stations in LA and, since we were actually two stations with less than full market coverage and a niche format, we were the first to go. And to another Spanish language format it went!

In the year 2000, the internet was becoming a force for radio to reckon with. Clear Channel had been one of the earliest radio companies to launch an internet division.

Charlie Rahilly, now the CEO of Premiere Radio, was the force behind Channel 103.1. He believed the format would work in LA, and he agreed with me that we could make history by moving it seamlessly from over the air to online only as worldclassrock.com.

You can read my first-hand account of that transition here.

Unfortunately, the story didn't have a happy ending. We were just too early! Broadband was still a rarity, and people just weren't listening to much music and certainly not radio online yet! Then the dot com bust happened and, the rest, as they say, is history.

Meanwhile, I had adopted my daughter from Kazakhstan (you can read all about that journey here), and I was out of work. I was already ready to leave LA when 9/11 happened. I wanted to move as far away from a big city as possible, so I sold my wonderful home in Culver City (stupid, stupid, stupid!) and moved to Taos, New Mexico.

I was told that Taos Mountain either welcomes you or it doesn't... and, in my case, it didn't! After a few months with at KTAO, I once again picked up and moved back home to Florida so my daughter could know her cousins and her Pop-Pop.

Another job brought me up to Boston for a year, but it still wasn't right, so we came back to South Florida, where I decided to start my own video production business, helping families transform their stories, photos, home movies, etc., into DVDs they could hand down to future generations.

But a funny thing happened. While doing the video production work, instead of listening to music, I had the radio tuned to the local Air America affiliate.

Thanks to my dad, I had always listened to talk radio. I even started my professional career in talk in both Tampa and New York.

But back in South Florida, where music radio is abysmal, it was Air America radio keeping me company.

It was also a sign of the times. George W. Bush had squandered the budget surplus left by the Clinton administration, and lied us into a war in Iraq.

Day by day, this aware but not involved woman morphed a bit more into a concerned single mom wondering and worried about what was happening to this world her daughter would soon inherit.

Although I loved the creative side of my video business, I loathed the selling part. I remembered the feeling of loss on 9/11, but not in the way you'd imagine. Having worked my entire professional life in radio, my first thought any time there's a major tragedy or disaster is to run to the radio station and help!

This wasn't just an event; our world was being destroyed by the administration!

I contacted Peter Bolger, then-Program Director at WINZ, the then-Progressive Talk station here in South Florida. After a six month courtship, he finally hired me to produce a new local morning show, hosted by newspaper veteran Jim DeFede. After a year, Jim moved on, and I took over hosting the show.

I found my new voice. I still love music, and work it into my show whenever possible, (like this interview with Neil Finn from last Thursday night!).

But by being able to talk for more than 30 seconds at a clip, by being able to voice an opinion, by being able to interview newsmakers and others with their own opinions, I felt, for the first time in a long time, that I was making a difference! I was loving being creative, and doing something really worthwhile at the same time!

Unfortunately, the consolidation era in radio was just a symptom of a bigger problem. Radio had become like most other industries in our country-- a tool to feed Wall Street. The product was no longer important; it was all about the bottom line.

I was always attracted to radio because of its immediacy and the personal nature of the medium. TV talked to the masses; Radio was the private, intimate medium.

But now it's about voicetracking and syndicated programs.

Most local radio stations' broadcast day is filled with national talent. The rare local talk show is usually found in morning drive only, which is where I was fortunate enough to be able to speak with the people of South Florida for a couple of years.

August 22, 2008, the Friday morning before the Democratic National Convention convened in Denver, I was let go from WINZ, only to be replaced by Don Imus. So much for "progressive talk" in South Florida. Six months later, the whole station was gone. WINZ now offers South Florida's fifth sports talk format!

Thankfully, I was introduced to the people at Air America, who gave me my first shot at a national audience about six weeks after losing my morning show. I guest hosted The Thom Hartmann Show. What an honor! To me, Thom is the most knowledgeable, respected voice in talk radio.

Air America has been my lifeline! As a listener, their programming moved me from aware to informed to involved.

They suffered through a number of management and ownership woes, but continue to survive and, I hope, to thrive. The right constantly refers to the liberal media bias but, you and I know that that's a myth. There are too few liberal voices on the airwaves, and too few radio stations offering Air America's programming.

Since that first day filling in for Thom Hartmann, I've been honored to guest-host for Rachel Maddow, Ron Reagan, Ron Kuby and Montel Williams. And for the past four months, it's been my privilege to host a nightly program on Air America radio.

I've come a long way, and I'm truly grateful for the wonderful notes of support and encouragement I receive from listeners; from the new ones who've just found me on Air America to the old M&B fans who are still listening!

On November 4, 2008, my 49th birthday, Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. We had so much hope.

How audacious of us. To believe that a bright, young, good looking, dare I say Kennedy-esque man could appear out of relative obscurity to bring this nation back to the promises and ideals of those pre-Reagan days. Back to the security I felt when I was still in my teens, and could go home to the safety of my mother's arms.

OK, I got caught up in the hype too. But this president was supposed to be different from the rest. And as I'm fortunate enough to be able to talk about every night on Air America, we've still got a very long way to go!

This Wednesday, November 4, 2009, I will turn 50 years old. As I take stock of my life in this rambling note of reflection, I realize that I have lots to be grateful for. I have a healthy, happy, beautiful, energetic, creative daughter (and I must remember those things when the less than joyous traits of her complex personality surface to infuriate me). I have a wonderful, loving, generous, patient, smart, compassionate, politically involved, brilliant boyfriend who loves me dearly (and I must remember those things when I get frustrated at the complexity of relationships and the lack of simplicity implicit in them).

I have a voice and an opinion and the opportunity to share them and, perhaps, have some sort of influence in an increasingly difficult world. I get to interview and ask tough questions of some of the best and brightest people who are truly working to change our country for the better, and challenge many of those, personally, whom I feel could be doing a much better job on our behalf. And I still get to listen to great music and introduce what I love to listeners who might otherwise not get to hear it.

I'm fifty years old this week. I lost my father six years ago. After he died, I learned that his degree from Boston University was in radio! He never told me that. He was very proud of me and happy for the success that I enjoyed during the good runs, and was always supportive when times were tough.

I'm now the parent, with my young daughter on my mind every day. She motivates me to try to make the world a better place.

The day I turn 50 will mark one year since we elected Barack Obama president. His year in office hasn't miraculously transported us back to my early childhood, when JFK was president. We haven't been returned to the peace and prosperity of the Clinton years, when I crossed the globe to adopt my daughter.

Obama isn't the hero so many of us thought he would be. What I've learned, aided by the wisdom of my years, is that nothing worthwhile is easily attained. And I don't think we'll ever have the answers. But we have to keep plugging away.

We leave childhood behind because we can't live in that state forever. But we must also fight for those things that are truly important.

I'll keep talking about what I believe, exposing truths and looking for answers. I'll keep listening to great music, I'll continue trying to teach my daughter what's important, all while trying to change what I can and be grateful for all I'm so lucky to have in my life.


Ever evolving, growing, learning, loving. Remembering the past, but moving forward....

Thanks for your continued support. It means more to me than you know. I hope you'll share this with any friends who might be interested in my thoughts, activities or whereabouts! I also hope you'll find me on Facebook, where I tend to post a lot of information, and at my podcast/blog at www.radioornot.com. And, for as long as they'll have me, I'm on Air America Radio, every weeknight from 11pm-1am ET, streaming live here! Here's to making the next fifty better than the first. At least I know I'll die trying!

Greatest American Hero

**Click here to listen to my interview with Congressman Dennis Kucinich**

The fight for real health care reform is far, very far from over!

We political junkies know who the true heroes are. They've been in the fight for a long time, knowing that slow and steady wins the race.

Then there are the newcomers, the flashes in the proverbial pans.

Not that there's anything wrong with them. Congressman Alan Grayson became an overnight sensation, earning the hearts and dollars of progressive democrats, and the ire of the right wing media after standing up on the floor of the House and blowing the lid off of the GOP health care plan: "Don't get sick. And if you do get sick, Die Quickly!"

It wasn't even so much what he said; it was more just simply the fact that he said it!

Democrats are not used to any of our elected officials actually standing up and speaking truth to power.

Anthony Weiner has become another regular on all of the MSNBC shows. He's been calling for a floor vote in the House on his amendment, which would basically replace the House health care bill with the single payer bill HR 676. I know he has the best of intentions, yet he probably should have consulted with the authors of HR 676.

John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich wrote that bill. And Dennis Kucinich has been working diligently for YEARS, pushing for real health care reform in the US. In fact, when you visit kucinich.us, the masthead reads "Whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. Health Care For All" followed by a petition you can sign "establishing health care as a civil right."

When I asked him a few months ago about Congressman Weiner's efforts to resurrect HR 676, Kucinich was less than enthusiastic. Of course, being the kind of guy he is, he'd never criticize his colleague and only spoke of him glowingly. But he did assert that the Weiner amendment would not pass; moreover it would suffer a crushing defeat in a floor vote.

Weiner was publicly pushing this bill, which stood no chance in hell of winning, when he could have joined with Kucinch in a slow, steady movement toward actual reform. Instead, Weiner's flash served to undermine the Kucinich amendment, which was the one bright shining element in the massive HR 3200.

The Kucinich Amendment is brilliant. It appeals to Republicans because it's all about state's rights. And it's our best chance to get a single payer health care system in this country, in that it allows us to achieve it in the same way Canada was able to. State by state to their province by province.

The Kucinch Amendment would allow states to set up single-payer health care systems modeled after Medicare, passed the House Education and Labor Committee in July, but was stripped out by Democratic leaders as they pieced together their final bill from the various committee proposals.

Congressman Kucinich today sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi urging her to reinstate his amendment. According to the Washington Independent, the letter was also signed by the House Progressive Caucus leadership, including Democratic Reps John Conyers (Mich.), Eric Massa (N.Y.), Neil Abercrombie (Hawaii), Janice Schakowsky (Ill.), Lynn Woolsey (Calif.) and Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.)

We all must join the effort. You can contact Nancy Pelosi's office, and your congressional representative, and insist that the Kucinich Amendment be reinstated too.

You can send Nancy Pelosi a message from her website, using the very handy form here. And you can call her office at 202-225-0100.

If you don't know who your Congressman is, just click here and put your zip code in the upper left hand corner to find out and get his or her contact information.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich will be my special guest tonight at midnight ET on Air America radio. I hope you'll join me tonight to listen to our greatest American hero.

Say It Ain't So, Joe

I don't give politicians much credit these days, though I have to give them props for the strength of their collective stomachs. I don't think I could take the rollercoaster that is is the legislative process.

Perhaps it's my adult ADD or my need for instant gratification (or at least near future gratification). Patience was never a virtue of mine.

The long, bumpy, twisty road to health care reform has been enough to make me sick. Just when we think we're on the home stretch, another obstacle pops up. This time, it wears the scary Halloween mask of Joe Lieberman. Truly terrifying.

Maura Keaney, in an editorial for The Guardian (UK) offered this bit of brilliance:

Joe Lieberman has become the Balloon Boy dad of the Senate Democratic caucus, a fame-whore so addicted to media attention that he hatches ever-more-desperate and risky schemes that sell out his "family" to earn press attention.

Progressives can only hope that, like Richard Heene, Lieberman will finally be exposed as a fame-seeking fraudster after his latest stunt, Tuesday's threat to filibuster any bill for health care reform that includes a public option.

So, what do we do about the errant Senator from Connecticut? I'll try to assess the options, and keep the nausea at bay.

Joe Lieberman, who was defeated in the Democratic primary in Connecticut in 2006 by challenger Ned Lamont, decided to go rogue and run as an independent. Although he had shown little loyalty to the party, it got behind him in a big way.

Lieberman, as we now know all too well, won and retained his seat in the Senate and in the Democratic caucus. Apparently, party leadership with their brilliance at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again and again, neglected to get any loyalty assurances from Mr. Lieberman in return for his place in the caucus. And even more irresponsible, he was given a prime committee chairmanship, again, with apparently no conditions.

How long should the Democratic party allow Lieberman's Republican ways to sit with the Dems, and even more importantly, to chair the all-important Homeland Security committee?

He not only campaigned in 2008 for the GOP ticket of McCain-Palin, but also for a number of Republicans in their bid for seats in the Senate. Today, he said he plans to actively campaign - again - for more Republican candidates in the coming days.future contests.

This week, Droopy Joe has been threatening to make history by siding with the Republicans to filibuster the health care bill -- voting against the cloture motion to cut off debate and bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

No Senator has ever gone against his caucus to filibuster legislation. If Lieberman does, indeed, do this, it will finally end his relationship with the Democratic party.

Many loyal liberals are calling for Lieberman's hide right now. Much to my amazement, I caution patience here. If Lieberman is stripped of his chairmanship and kicked out of the caucus now, he most definitely will filibuster and do all he can to block any new legislation.

He is a wimp. I have a feeling that with enough pressure put on him, he'll bow his head and come crawling back to the Democrats and will vote for cloture. I believe, as Maura Keaney wrote above, that Joe Lieberman is an attention seeking whore.

Perhaps when push comes to shove he will do the right thing. If not, there's plenty of time to kick him to the curb later.

Health Care Reform... Not Dead Yet

**Updated to include links to the interviews mentioned below:
Congressman Alan Grayson
Brent Budowsky
Neil Finn ***

Though it sure seems as if someone in Washington is trying to kill the public option.

Harry Reed surprised the hell out of me last week when he announced that the Senate health care bill would include a public option. It gave me great pleasure to announce that I was wrong. I'd love nothing more than to be proven wrong in my pessimism today.

Nancy Pelosi today released the final House bill, HR 3962 The Affordable Health Care for America Act, which includes a less than robust public option. The concession she had to give to garner the 218 votes necessary to get the bill off the floor, I suppose, was to promise reimbursement rates to be negotiated with doctors, rather than based on Medicare rates plus 5%.

But that's not the worst part of what happened today. Speaker "Off the Table" Pelosi sold out a couple of progressive members of the House.

First up, Anthony Weiner. You might remember Weiner introducing an amendment that would replace the then-House bill, HR 3200, with the Single Payer bill HR 676. At first, I thought this was a wonderful idea! That is, until I spoke with Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who co-authored HR 676 with John Conyers.

Mr. Kucinich has been in the House a long time, and understands the snail-like pace and frustrating ways in which things get done. Obviously, as author of the bill, he'd like nothing more than a single payer health care system in the country. But, as he explained to me, bringing the Weiner amendment up for a floor vote is the wrong way to go about it! It would lose, handily. You don't go into these fights when you know you're going to lose!

Congressman Weiner didn't heed the advice of his colleague, and pushed ahead, appearing on MSNBC, seemingly at every opportunity. Today, we learned that even though Congressman Weiner was promised a full floor vote on his amendment, it will not happen. Again, since it would have failed by a huge margin, it's probably just as well. And it did take the attention and efforts away from the better, more logical, Kucinich Amendment. But that certainly doesn't excuse the Speaker from her serious breach of trust; Education and Labor Committee Chairman Henry Waxman told him that Pelosi promised Mr. Weiner a full floor vote if he'd skip a committee vote.

Dennis Kucinich got his amendment through the Education and Labor committee bill, which would have allowed states to create their own single payer statewide health care system. This was the one hope we had in this legislation that would have opened the door to the only system that would truly reform health care in this country. It passed in the committee on which Dennis sits; one of the three bills that was reported in the House, and merged into this new bill that Pelosi introduced today. Although, as David Swanson reports today on afterdowningstreet.org, the Kucinich Amendment was stripped out of the bill, and no new amendments will be allowed in the debate before the House votes on the legislation.

I invited Congressman Kucinich on the program tonight to respond to today's developments. He will likely appear tomorrow night. In the meantime, he issued this statement today:

Washington D.C. (October 29, 2009) – Following a statement on the Floor of the House of Representative, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement about the latest House health care plan:

“Is this the best we can do? Forcing people to buy private health insurance, guaranteeing at least $50 billion in new business for the insurance companies?

“Is this the best we can do? Government negotiates rates which will drive up insurance costs, but the government won’t negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies which will drive up pharmaceutical costs.

“Is this the best we can do? Only 3% of Americans will go to a new public plan, while currently 33% of Americans are either uninsured or underinsured?

“Is this the best we can do? Eliminating the state single payer option, while forcing most people to buy private insurance.

“If this is the best we can do, then our best isn’t good enough and we have to ask some hard questions about our political system: such as Health Care or Insurance Care? Government of the people or a government of the corporations.”

Tonight, we'll talk about what happened today with Democratic advisor and The Hill columnist, Brent Budowsky. We'll also check in with Christy Harvey at the Center for American Progress.

Earlier today, I guest-hosted Montel Across America, and Alan Grayson was my guest. I'll share with you some parts of the interview, and explain why I'm becoming a bit disenchanted with the guy who, before our interview, I considered a hero.

And we'll have a treat tonight as well. One of my favorite bands of all time is the under-appreciated Crowded House! Neil Finn led the band, forming it after the band he and his brother fronted, Split Enz, broke up.

Neil Finn has put together a stellar group of musicians for a project called 7 Worlds Collide. Neil, his brother Tim Finn, sons Liam and Elroy, wife Sharon, along with Johnny Marr (The Smiths, Modest Mouse), Jeff Tweedy and Pat Sansone (Wilco), KT Tunstall, Ed O'Brien & Phil Selway (Radiohead) along with other equally notable musicians, got together at Finn's New Zealand home for three weeks last Christmas to record the album "The Sun Came Out." The proceeds will go to Oxfam America, an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice. Find them at www.oxfamamerica.org.

Here's a look and listen to a few of the songs from Neil Finn and the all-star band of the players of 7 Worlds Collide:

Billionaires for Wealthcare Strike Again!

These guys rock! Check them out at www.billionairesforwealthcare.com

Inching Closer Toward Health Care Reform

I can't recall exactly how many times in the past few months I heard some pundit proclaim that "the Public Option is dead!" I refused to believe it.

I knew that whatever passed wouldn't be as good as it should be, and would be nowhere near what we need to truly provide affordable, quality health care for our citizenry. But I always believed that, in the end, we'd have some semblance of a public option.

But I never thought that Harry Reid would emerge the hero! On that count, I was wrong! And I'm thrilled to admit it!

Harry Reid held a press conference this afternoon in which he said that the final Senate bill will have a public option, with states having an opt out provision.

Cool! Let the Republican led states try to wiggle out of the public option after some of their citizens have been enrolled for a year, and see them fall out of office! Works for me.

Once it's passed, it'll be up to us to strengthen the program, and expand it so that anyone who wants to buy into the system is able to. But I realize we'll have to take it one step at a time. Perhaps we can call it patience for patients.

It's still far from perfect. The biggest problem is that none of the benefits of this reform will take effect until 2013! So I was thrilled to see an article in Politico.com today entitled "Dems Push for Benefits to Start by 2010" Now, that's what I'm talking about!

So, I reached out to Carrie Budoff Brown who authored the piece, and she'll join me tonight on Air America.

I wasn't alone in my contention that Harry Reid was an ineffective and spineless excuse for a Senate Majority Leader. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee had been running spots in Nevada targeting him, which appear to have paid off in a big way today. Tonight, we'll also check in with PCCC co-founder Adam Green to congratulate him and find out what comes next!

And we'll get the big picture from Democratic party insider Brent Budowsky, who was an aide to former Senators Lloyd Bensten and Bill Alexander, then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He can be read on The Hill's Pundit's blog, and occasionally also writes a column for the paper. "Public Option Will Win" will appear tomorrow, and he'll speak with us, at length, about it tonight.

It is a jam-packed show tonight, but we should have time to get your thoughts in too, if you call 866-303-2270! Listen live from 11pm-1am ET here, and join in the live chat by clicking on the link below the player.

History Repeating

I use a song called "History Repeating" as the theme music for my radio show. It constantly amazes me how often the song fits the topics we discuss.

This weekend, a group of Vietnam War protestors who were known as The Resistance reunited in Santa Monica California.

On Friday night, I spoke with Bob Zaugh, one of the organizers of the event, who himself was a member of The Resistance. (hear that interview here)

They've invited one Vietnam veteran to speak at the event as well -- Ron Kovic.

Most of us know of Ron Kovic through the book he wrote about his experiences, both during and after the war: Born On the Fourth of July. The book was turned into a major motion picture directed by Oliver Stone, and starring Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic.

It was a special hour as I spoke with Ron Kovic about the Vietnam war, his experiences and the parallels with Afghanistan. (Listen to that interview here)

We also previewed Saturday's International Day of Climate Change Action with Bill McKibben, the co-founder of www.350.org. (listen here)

My Mom

Thirty years ago, my whole life changed.

Just about two weeks shy of my 20th birthday, I arrived home from college, summoned by my dad.

My mother wasn't doing well.

She had suffered, silently, with leukemia for about 10 years, though I didn't know it for a long time.

My family moved from NY to Hollywood, Florida in June of 1971. I was eleven. Apparently, mom was already sick.

Dad ran a business, publishing magazines... Spanish language "girlie" magazines. Mom didn't work. Such was life a generation ago.

We moved from an apartment in Bayside, Queens, to a sprawling home in South Florida, and I thought life was good. That is, until one Saturday morning when I awoke to hear one side of my mother's phone conversation with a friend, and the words, "they did a biopsy, and it's malignant."

I was fifteen at the time, old enough to know what that meant. I confronted her and, only then, did she tell me the truth. She had been diagnosed with a malignant melanoma. But the bigger part was that she had been suffering with "chronic leukemia" for some time.

As a child, then a young teenager, I never questioned why my mother went to the doctor at least once a week. Nor did I ask why she had to take so many pills. It was just part of our normal, everyday life. But, in that one moment, the pieces of the puzzle, which I had never previously attempted to solve, came together.

My friends knew. They all knew before I did, because their parents knew. My mother just wanted to protect us. She didn't want us to worry.

At sixteen, I got my drivers license. There were times I'd drive her to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Still in that selfish teenage mindset, I never asked what the doctors appointments were for, nor did I ask why she had to be driven. When she winced in pain, silently, so as not to alarm me, I never asked what was hurting. I now realize that she was undergoing chemo. Though I still don't know for sure.

She had prescriptions for Quaalude, which I suppose was the late 70's equivalent of Oxycontin. I figured she was in pain, but instead of sympathizing with mom, I would sneak a few of them every now and then for my own teen aged pleasure.

Although I loved my mother and got along well with her, I was a real teenager, and never really talked with her about the things that matter.

In the fall of 1977, I went off to college. Four hours away, Tampa, seemed like far enough from home.

I put on a good act for my parents. I always got decent grades without much effort. But I was a pretty wild child, who enjoyed the excesses of
the time -- sex, drugs, rock and roll.

I had a good life. An apartment in Tampa, a car, and tuition... all paid for by my dad. And a sick mother, about which I didn't think much.

I spoke to my mom on the 21st of October, 1979. She told me that she was going in to the hospital for a few tests. When I asked why, she simply said it was no big deal. One of her legs gave out from under her, and the doctor wanted to run tests. Again, she told me not to worry.

The next day, I called the hospital, and my dad answered the phone. When I asked to speak to mom, he told me she was sleeping. But I could have sworn I heard her voice in the background. I didn't question it.

That night dad called, and told me to come home. It wasn't good.

When I arrived at the hospital, mom was unconscious and hooked up to machines. On October 23, we were told that she had suffered a brain hemorrhage. Apparently, the bleed is what caused her leg to give out. And the day before when I called, she was indeed awake. But she was having trouble speaking coherently. She couldn't find the words to say what she was trying to say. So I didn't get to speak with her that one final time.

The doctors said she was brain dead, but that they'd have to wait 24 hours before officially declaring her dead and removing her from life support.

Patricia Sue Brown Sandler was 47 when she was declared dead on October 24, 1979.

I turned 20 less than two weeks later, on November 4, 1979.

The world kept turning. On my 20th birthday, the US Embassy in Iran was seized, and the hostages were taken. A year later, on my 21st birthday, Ronald Reagan was elected president. All these things happened in a world without my mother.

Although I'm not a religious person, I think my mom is with me for the truly important things. I believe she was there in January of 1994, when the Northridge earthquake hit. I was at the time producer of the Mark & Brian Program on KLOS in Los Angeles. At 4:30 every morning, I was in the shower.

On the Friday before, in a very uncharacteristic move, I told my boss that I needed a day off, and would not be in on Monday! It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, though it wasn't a holiday for us. So, on that Monday morning, when the quake hit at 4:31am, I was in bed. If I had been in the shower, it's a pretty good bet that I would have joined my mother that day.

For some reason, there was a floor length mirror on a ledge in my shower when I rented the apartment. I never thought much of it, and it remained there...until the earthquake, when
the shower filled with giant, sharp shards of glass. It's a pretty good bet that, if I had been in the shower, I would have been killed. To this day, I credit my mom for my blurting out that I was taking Monday off!

And although my mother and my daughter have never met in person, I also think Mom had a hand in bringing us together. I adopted Alison from Kazakhstan.

The adoption process was a long 18 months, during which I was shuffled from one region to another, then finally to another country where I found my daughter. She was a foundling, actually left on a doorstep of a private home. It was evident that she was loved, as she was left with a bottle of formula, diaper, a blanket and a little hat.

The authorities estimated she was about a month old, that she was likely born around May 1, 1999. My mother's birthday was May 3. When the new birth certificate was issued, showing me as her mother, they asked me if I wanted to change the date! Of course I did. Alison's birthday is now, also, May 3. Her middle name, Paige, is for Patricia.

Thirty years have passed since I lost my mother. I have so many regrets. I wish I would have talked to her more, asked questions about her, and listened to what she had to say. I regret that I was so selfish and wasn't there for her when she was in pain. But I know that she was selfless in her suffering. She didn't want us to worry....

I never thought I'd make it past 47. That was always this number ---- off in the future. And I just figured I'd follow in my mother's footsteps. Well, in less than two weeks, I'll turn 50. Amazing. And I still think of my mother, almost every day.

And I miss her.

Medicare Part E (E for Everyone)

Last Friday, I wrote a piece saluting Blue Dog Mike Ross of AR, who had some sort of epiphany. Although he had previously railed against the idea of a public option, the conservadem all of a sudden decided that what might work would be to allow people in need of health insurance the option of buying in to Medicare, but having the doctors reimbursed at a higher rate than the current Medicare reimbursements. Voila. A movement has begun.

Actually, Congressman Ross wasn't the first to suggest this. Many have suggested it. In fact, it really is (drum roll please) the public option, which we all agree was a pretty lousy name in the first place!

Tonight, Keith Olbermann was talking about how he had suggested it a couple of weeks ago, during his hour-long Special Comment on health care. And today, on his radio show, Thom Hartmann reiterated his call, first issued months ago, for Medicare Part E. E, for Everyone!

As we inch ever closer toward the merging of the five pieces of health care legislation into one final bill, members of both Houses of Congress are weighing in. And although none can promise with actual numbers that it will happen, most are saying they believe the bill that lands on President Obama's desk will contain a public option... now being re branded as Medicare Part E.

In all fairness, Medicare for All would only be accomplished with a Single Payer health care system, though I do believe that a public option, or Medicare Part E would be a huge step in the right direction.

Dr. Aaron Carroll is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, and an outspoken advocate of Single Payer. I was a bit surprised to read a piece he wrote for Huffington Post entitled "The Public Option Is Not Where You Draw The Line."

I'll speak with him tonight, as I fully disagree! I'll also bring you up to date on what happened today in the Capital Hill wheeling and dealing on the way to a final bill.

We'll start the show with a visit from my favorite activist, David Swanson, author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. David is a frequent guest of mine and, tonight, in addition to talking about the book and finding out what actions David's involved with now, we'll find out what got him started on the activism road.

And Lisa Derrick, who writes the La Figa blog at FireDogLake will join us with a special announcement... We'll all find out together what it is shortly after midnight ET.

Listen live by clicking here from 11pm-1am ET, and join us in the chat (open it up, directly below the player!). And of course, your calls are always welcome at 866-303-2270.

Yes.. Yes... Yessss!

We all love a good prank. Especially this time of year. Halloween tricks are not as prevalent as treats, but when done well, they're great. Ashton Kutcher won over a generation with Punked, and those of us who are a little older remember the great pranks in the original Candid Camera.

But when you combine the absolute genius of a perfect ruse with social activism, you get the Yes Men!

I reached out to one of the men-Andy Bichlbaum-last month, when they published an exact replica of the NY Post, except that this one dealt entirely with climate change, and everything in it was factually correct!

Today, I caught up with Andy once again, this time to talk about their Washington DC press conference, in which Andy posed as the assistant to the president of the US Chamber of Commerce, claiming that they had changed their stance on climate change.

They issued a fake press release, and posted the text of the remarks that he would deliver on a mock-up of the chamber website, at a reasonable sounding URL.

The video of part of the presser, and the appearance by an actual Chamber employee is priceless:

The Yes Men have a movie out, The Yes Men Fix the World. Click on the link to find out when and where it will be playing near you. And keep an eye out for the next Yes Man action! Perhaps you'll get motivated to do one yourself... Visit BeyondTalk.net for ideas!

In the first hour of tonight's show, we'll explore the idea of corporate person hood. It's truly absurd, but even crazier than the idea of it is the reality of how it came to be. To explain it to us, Thom Hartmann will join me.

Thom is the smartest guy I know and somehow, in addition to his daily radio program, he finds the time to be a prolific author. One of his many books is entitled "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," which details the story. It also brings us right up to today, when any time now the Supreme Court will rule on Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Committee, to decide whether federal campaign finance laws apply to a film about Hillary Clinton, and the bigger question about the constitutionality of limiting corporations' independent spending during campaigns for the Presidency and Congress.

Listen live here from 11pm-1am ET, and join us in the chat (right below the player). As always, I hope you'll join in the conversation on air too, by calling 866-303-2270.

A Woman's Work Is Never Done

And as a single, working mother, I know how true that statement is. This week, my knowledge is verified, as Maria Shriver and The Center for American Progress team up to release "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything."

Yes, you can click on the link to download the whole report. I'm sure I will one of these days, when I get the time. Or, if I lived in one of the fourteen states that allow some use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, I might just actually de-stress for a while.

The connection, dear reader, will soon be apparent!

In the first hour, I'll speak with Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, where they must be celebrating on some level today. The Justice Department issued a directive today, followed by a collaborating statement by Attorney General Eric Holder, which basically said that people who use marijuana for medical purposes and those who distribute it should not face federal prosecution, provided they are acting according to state law. (Read the NY Times story here.)

Although motherhood is not considered one of the medical conditions for which marijuana is prescribed in the fourteen states which recognize its medicinal value, the for-profit health insurance industry considers pregnancy a pre-existing condition, as it does a cesarean section, or being a victim of domestic violence.

By my unscientific calculations, I'd say probably 75% of women should qualify for one of those prescriptions!

Back to the Shriver Report... In the second hour of tonight's show, I'll be joined by a remarkable woman. Dr. Judith Rodin truly blazed some trails for women. She currently serves as the President of the Rockefeller Foundation (the first woman to hold that position in its 96 year history). Before that, she was the first female dean at Yale, and then went on to become the first female President of the University of Pennsylvania.

The Rockefeller Foundation paid for the polling done to research the subject matter that became the Shriver Report.

I'll speak with Dr. Rodin tonight, add some of my thoughts as a woman on the cusp of turning 50, and share some of the wisdom of my dear friend Amy Simon, who makes her living (or attempts to make a living) by writing about and poking fun at the plight of women throughout history to today.

As always, listen live to the show from 11pm-1am ET by clicking here, be sure to join us in the chat (just below the player). And feel free to join in the conversation by calling 866-303-2270.

A Public Option Solution!

As we head into the second half of October, the health care debate continues raging on.

In the Senate, Max Baucus, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid and Rahm Emanuel are merging the bills reported by the Finance and the HELP committees into one.

On the House side, Nancy Pelosi, along with the chairs of the three committees who put forth their health care bills, will come up with one merged piece of legislation.

The big question still hanging over all of the negotiations is "What about the public option?"

Well, the best suggestion I've heard in a long time came from Mike Ross (D-AK), head of the Blue Dog coalition of conservadems! Apparently, yesterday, he suggested an idea that would make me very happy!

From "The Hill":

Blue Dog Rep. Mike Ross, who made headlines by rejecting a compromise he'd negotiated on a public health insurance option, has suggested to Democratic leaders that the government-run Medicare program be opened to all Americans.

Ross (D-Ark.) has made the suggestion in meetings with House Democratic leaders and brought the idea to the closed-door House Democratic Caucus meeting Thursday.

"I -- speaking only on behalf of myself -- suggested one possible idea could be that instead of creating an entirely new government bureaucracy to administer a public option, Medicare could be offered as a choice to compete alongside private insurers for those Americans eligible to enter the national health insurance exchange, but at a reimbursement rate much greater than current Medicare rates," Ross said in a statement to The Hill.

It makes so much sense, that it's probably doomed before it even gets started.

Democratic Strategist and author of The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came To Be, Mike Lux authored a piece for Huffington Post today, "Can Progressives and Conservatives Agree on Health Care Reform?" about this idea. He'll join me tonight to talk about it.

I'll also check in Larisa Alexandrova of managing editor for investigative news at Raw Story, who also blogs at atlargely.com. She regularly visits with us on Friday nights to talk about the stories she covered during the week that's wrapping up. We'll do that tonight, but we'll also talk about Larisa's own personal struggle with health insurance.

She's in the same position as millions of other American citizens, and it's just plain wrong. By the way, I'll likely be joining those ranks in February, when my COBRA runs out.

I'll close out the show with an interview with journalist and author Olivia Gentile, who's written a lovely book called Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds. Honestly, I have no interest in bird watching... or rather, I didn't before finding out about this book. I think you'll enjoy the story too.

Listen live by clicking here, and be sure to click on the link below the player to join us in the chat room! And, by all means, join in the discussion by calling 866-303-2270.

Climate Change, Public Options, And Lots Of Hot Air

Did you hear the one about the Democrat and the Republican who joined forces to pass climate change legislation, and gave us more nuclear power plants, offshore drilling and coal?

I know, it sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it isn't! It's real, it's deadly serious, and it's happening today!

Seriously, John Kerry and Lindsey Graham together wrote a NY Times Op-Ed piece that appeared on Sunday entitled "Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)" and it pushes for more nukes, offshore drilling, and turning the US into the "Saudi Arabia of clean coal." I kid you not. Read it for yourself.

When you're done reading that and your head has stopped shaking, read "Is the Climate Bill Being Fossil/Nuked?" The piece comes courtesy of Harvey Wasserman, author of Solartopia! Our Green Powered Earth, and senior editor of www.freepress.org where the article first appeared.

Harvey Wasserman will join me tonight to explain why the Democrats are so eager to pass any bill so the President has something to bring to Copenhagen in December that they're willing to sell our nation's soul to get something with the word "climate" attached to it! ***Listen to our interview here!***

The Nuclear Information & Resource Service organized a "call your Senator day" today (it's not too late to join in), and a series of demonstrations for the environment are set for October 24.

In the second hour of tonight's show, I'll speak with Lisa Derrick, who writes the La Figa blog at FireDogLake. We'll dish about the week's news, and she'll tell us about a new contest at PublicOptionPlease.com.

Listen live by clicking here, and join in the chat too (we'll be in the chat room for the stream from 1050am). As always, call in at 866-303-2270.

White House: What Fox Does Is Faux News

I've been saying it all along. In fact, the words Fox and News will not easily escape from my lips one after the other. Faux (or fake - to make it easier for their viewers to understand) is a more apt description of the type of "news" they offer.

Finally, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn made it official last week, while speaking with Howie Kurtz on CNN, and even took it a step further by saying that Fox is essentially the PR wing of the Republican Party!

Media Matters' Eric Boehlert, who wrote a great piece about the reality of what the offending cable channel has become, "Memo to the media: Fox News is now the Opposition Party." will be my guest tonight in the first hour of my show on Air America radio.

We'll also deal with the monster that is Rush Limbaugh and, now that he's out of the bidding, I want to get your thoughts on whether or not he should be allowed to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

Hopefully by now you've noticed that we have a new website up at AirAmerica.com. It has lots of great features, including its own chat!

Thom Hartmann has been gracious enough to allow me the use of his chat room during my show for the past few months, but tonight, we'll try to transition to the new Air America chat.

Just click here to listen live, and from that screen, just below the player, you can open the chat window.

The number to call in remains the same: 866-303-2270.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

We have one thing from each of those categories to talk about tonight on my Air America radio show.

Let's start with the good. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. She's definitely one of the good ones! Although I had already been aware of her, she made an indelible mark on my consciousness a couple of weeks ago with a one-two punch. First, she was one of the stars of Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. So much so that the movie theater audience cheered her!

The same weekend I saw the film, she appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, and again, everything she said made so much sense! Not my average response to a member of Congress.

In fact, it was those two appearances that influenced me to really go gung-ho on campaign finance reform.

We spoke earlier this evening, and we'll hear that interview in the second hour of tonight's show. We spoke quite a bit about campaign finance reform, and she references a bill that she has introduced.

After you hear the interview, you might want to read up on H. Con. Res. 13 "Expressing the sense of Congress that the Supreme Court misinterpreted the First Amendment to the Constitution in the case of Buckley v. Valeo" (which said that money = free speech), and H.J.Res. 13 "Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to limitations on the amounts of contributions and expenditures that may be made in connection with campaigns".

On to the bad. There's not much to talk about, as we don't have the facts yet. But Congressman Robert Wexler is apparently resigning his office to take a public policy job that deals with the Middle East. He'll meet with reporters tomorrow morning in Boca Raton, at which time I'm sure most of our questions will be answered.

I did reach out to someone who works closely with him with the simple question, "Is he OK?" The answer that came back was "He's fine. Don't worry. It's all good."

Except for the people in his district and those of us who aren't, but are proud to have him represent Florida nonetheless. I guess we'll know more tomorrow.

As for the ugly, well, that's Max Baucus's health care bill, which passed out of committee today. Let's face it. As far as a health care reform bill, it's a piece of shit. But it needed to clear this hurdle and make it out of the Senate Finance committee in order to move on.

Now it can be merged with the HELP committee bill; the three House bills can be merged into one; and those two can be put together... Hopefully some of the stink will be gone by then.

We'll discuss what happened today and try to predict the future of health care reform with David Dayen. You probably know him as D-Day, under which name he blogs at www.d-day.blogspot.com. He's also serving as a blog fellow for Robert Greenwald's Sick for Profit.

And perhaps you'll chime in too! You can call in at 866-303-2270, join in the live chat here, and listen live from 11pm-1am ET here!

Last night's audio

Ahh, the morning after. Actually, afternoon!

Here are links to listen to last night's interviews, just in case you missed them last night! (Just click on the guest's name to listen, and on the other links for more information.)

Juan Cole, salon.com contributor who wrote a great piece "Obama got the Nobel because he's a game changer" is also a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, and the author of "Engaging the Muslim World." He also writes the "Informed Comment" blog at www.juancole.com.

Brent Budowsky, a Democratic Party insider and advisor, writes for TheHill.com's Pundit's Blog. We spoke about Obama's Nobel Prize and the ongoing fight for health care reform.

And although I live in Florida, since I've been hosting a national program on Air America radio, I've been less than diligent about covering this state's soap-operatic political scene. So I checked in with State Senator and candidate for Florida Attorney General Dan Gelber last night, who had just returned from the Florida Democratic Convention. Find him at www.dangelber.com.