President POTUS

Dr. Justin Frank

Dr. Justin Frank talks about his new book, Obama on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President with Peter B. Collins.  Dr. Frank is a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, and previously wrote Bush on the Couch. Frank maintains a private practice in marital and family therapy.  He describes “Obsessive Bipartisan Disorder” and remarks on Obama’s attraction to appeasing the GOP leaders who are committed to his destruction.

Source: Dr. Justin A. Frank Puts ‘Obama on the Couch’

Peter B. Collins

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

But first watch this ...

... and also, California AG, Kamala Harris sold us out

The Top Twelve Reasons Why You Should Hate the Mortgage Settlement

Here are the top twelve reasons why this deal stinks:

1. We’ve now set a price for forgeries and fabricating documents. It’s $2000 per loan.

If you want to know why and how the right-wing gained and has maintained hold of American discourse and rhetoric ... read what follows. It's ten years old but the points are still valid

The Powell Manifesto: How A Prominent Lawyer's Attack Memo Changed America

America's Second Gilded Age has been scoured of its glitter, along with the platitudes that its town criers preached -- "too much government," "market infallibility," and "prosperity forever." The policies and ethical failures that sprang from this gospel are under intense scrutiny. After 30 years, the self-serving creed of a right-wing coalition of wealth and power -- ideologues, promoters, corporate executives, and the American aristocracy of money - is under assault, its system failures increasingly apparent. Their ideology tantalized millions with the promise of "getting the government off our backs!"

The consequences of this readily marketable guff have led us to drastically altered economic circumstances -- a ruinous drop in both stock values and ethical standards that has weakened the economy; far worse, a global loss of confidence in the American economic system, and in a pro-market administration that is squandering America's good name and credibility among allies and friends

Watch the video ... Actually it's worse, when you look at it the right way

The L-Curve graph represents income, not wealth. The distribution of wealth is even more skewed. Quoting from a recently-published book by political philosopher David Schweickart,

If we divided the income of the US into thirds, we find that the top ten percent of the population gets a third, the next thirty percent gets another third, and the bottom sixty percent get the last third. If we divide the wealth of the US into thirds, we find that the top one percent own a third, the next nine percent own another third, and the bottom ninety percent claim the rest. (Actually, these percentages, true a decade ago, are now out of date. The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation's wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%.)

Bruce Fein

Dr. Mike Beitler interviews Bruce Fein. Bruce Fein is a constitutional scholar who served as the Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan from 1981 to 1982. Bruce discusses War Powers Act, Renewal of the Patriot Act, and cutting national security/defense spending to balance the budget. He has the best summary of the history of the U.S. empire I've ever heard.
Source: Now Playing:Bruce Fein, Constitutional Scholar & Author

Why Patriot Act Serves Empire, Not Republic
Source: Patriot Act Serves Empire Not a Republic

Obama Institutes Indefinite Detention
Interview with Bruce Fein, former assistant deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, conducted by Scott Harris.
Source: Obama Executive Order to Institutionalize Indefinite Detention

Peter Van Buren

Peter Van Buren, author of "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the War for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People", talks about his book and his observations on Western-style nation building.
Source: TomCast for May 15, 2010: We Meant Well

Play Program or Download(below the fold)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/node/58333

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag. The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn't need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating "independence," or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule over the 13 colonies.

Or perhaps I should say, a large portion of us take turns being happy or outraged depending on the political party with which the current president is identified.

Andrew Bacevich

Harry Kreisler talks with Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University, for a discussion of the causes and consequences of the militarization of U.S. foreign policy. Bacevich explores the origins of militarization and the factors that sustained their existence for more than six decades.
Source: Conversations With History: America's Path to Permanent War

Ray McGovern

Scott Horton Interviews Ray McGovern

Ray McGovern, former senior analyst at the CIA, discusses why the corrupted mainstream U.S. media needs to be supplanted by WikiLeaks. They comment on the State Department’s successful interference with Spanish and German courts seeking to indict U.S. officials.
Source: Scott Horton Interviews Ray McGovern, December 13, 2010

Music includes Earth Anthem, house on fire, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, Robin Williams on Reagan, Freedom Trilogy, Who's Next, 900 Miles, We'll Meet Again

Ted Rall

Jason Leopold

Will Durst

From the Peter B. Collins' Show
Jason Leopold on Obama’s contradictory positions on torture.
Peter B. Collins' memo to Obama.
Ted Rall talks about his new book, "The Anti-American Manifesto".
Will Durst on Democratic whiners.
Source: Obama’s Hypocritical Positions on Torture; PBC says “I’ll Stop Whining If….”; Ted Rall’s Anti-American Manifesto; Will Durst

Music includes Earth Anthem, How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live, We'll Meet Again

Play Program or Download below the fold