Blood, Sweat and Tears is the theme for today’s show. Not the band, but the reality that those are the main components of life in the US of A in the 21st Century. Too much blood, too many dead or maimed soldiers and civilians thanks to our military incursions, misplaced ire and weapons of mass destruction. Our labor woes since the Bush depression, with a recovery made up of jobs at half the salaries we had before the meltdown, and the vilification of the labor movement that brought about workplace safety, a 5-day/40-hour work week, vacation time, sick leave and other worker protections.
And tears. And more tears. And more to come, brought on by it all.
I don’t see it getting any better, and don’t see Hillary Clinton -or anyone at all from the other side – as the answer to our problems. But I do think we’ve shed way too much blood in unjust wars, have screwed over our working class and cried too many tears. It would be nice to see some positive change for a change, but I’m afraid we’re a long way away from good times again.
Maybe if we could all just get along and live in peace.
On second thought, that’ll never happen. Just look at their facial expressions when they sing the line, “we shall live in peace” during the most awkward singalong ever.
This morning, Susie Madrak of Crooks & Liars joined in to talk a bit about yesterday’s primary elections in NY where it looks like Charlie Rangel will hold on to his House seat (47.4-43.6), and the runoff in Mississippi which saw Sen. Thad Cochran barely beating off the upstart teabagger Chris McDaniels 51-49.
We also talked about today’s three Supreme Court decisions- one that unanimously found that law enforcement must obtain warrants before searching cell phones (opinion posted here), another ruling against Aereo, a new company that rebroadcast over-the-air TV signals online – or did until now (opinion posted here)! And a third (known as Fifth Third) having to do with pensions and funds that I don’t understand at all, but the opinion is posted here.
We’re still awaiting decisions on NLRB v. Noel Canning (recess appointments), McCullen v. Coakley (abortion clinic buffer zones), Harris v. Quinn (public employee unions) and Hobby Lobby (contraception mandate), which will come down tomorrow morning at 10ET. If they don’t announce all the decisions tomorrow, they’ll come back to finish up on Monday June 30. Talk about suspense!
In the second hour of the show, I was thrilled to welcome investigative journalist and author Dahr Jamail back to the show. When I spoke with Dahr in the past, it was to discuss our wars in Middle East, as Dahr spent more than a year in Iraq as one of a very small group of independent, UNembedded journalists covering the war. I obviously wanted his take on the mess over there now.
Lately, he’s been focusing his work on climate change or, as he calls it, anthropogenic climate disruption. Obviously, both issues are closely related. I urge you to read Dahr’s work on both topics, either at his own site DahrJamail.net or over at Truthout.org. We’ll definitely talk again soon because our time together today went by way too quickly!
Tomorrow, well deal with whatever the Supreme Court throws at us at the start of the show, hear some fabulous female facts from Amy Simon and the No More Bullshit Minute with Stephen Goldstein too!
