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Imagine for a moment that you have a brother who you haven’t spoken with in many years who turns out to be a suspect in a terrorist plot.  That would suck, right?  Imagine further that because of your brother’s alleged actions, you were detained for two years, then forced to become a government informant, made to infiltrate houses of worship to find information on people with whom you are in no way associated.

It seems that that is exactly what happened to Hesham Abu-Zubaida, the brother of Hani Mohamed Abu-Zubaida (who was originally alleged to have been one of the 9/11 masterminds, but now not-so-much).  

Strange, though, that no one seemed to realize that the younger Abu-Zubaida was even in the US, let alone married to a US citizen and trying to get a green card for many years.  

His story came to light yesterday via the investigative work of Truthout‘s Jason Leopold, who noticed a comment on a post at Guantanamo expert Andy Worthington’s blog from someone claiming to be Abu-Zubaida’s brother and went to work tracking him down.  Fourteen months later, Truthout published the finished piece,”EXCLUSIVE: From Hopeful Immigrant to FBI Informant – The Other Abu Zabaida“.

Jason Leopold joined me for the first hour of today’s show to talk about this story and the sidebar – about how FBI agents showed up at Abu Zabaida’s home to question him about the Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Jason for this story (to which the FBI still hasn’t officially responded).  It’s chillingly frightening, especially given the recent crackdown on the First Amendment rights of journalists (and everyone else) in this country.

In the second hour, I spoke briefly with Barbara Boyle of the Sierra Club about the Reid Gardner Coal Plant in Nevada that’s only 500 yards from homes of Native Americans on the Moapa River Reservation, and creates a dark cloud that rains dirty coal pollution.  As a result, families fear fro the health of their kids and families.  The pollution from the coal also threatens the nearby Grand Canyon, Joshua Tree National Park and the ground water that feeds into Lake Mead reservoir and provides water for Arizona and surrounding Lakes. Read more about it here and sign on to a petition to the EPA.

 

And finally, it seems there’s no solution to the problems with our public schools – and both sides of the political spectrum seem to be endorsing the absolute worst strategy – as promoted by the shill/scam artist Michelle Rhee – which will likely totally destroy our public school system.  Nicole Belle wrote a scathing piece for Crooks and Liars after two ostensibly progressive shows had charter cheerleaders on pushing their propaganda.

Current TV’s Gavin Newsom hosted Rhee herself, while Melissa Harris-Perry let Jonathan Alter spew similar nonsense (videos below).  But Nicole was the voice of reason in a piece entitled “Demonizing Teachers’ Unions” …  Nicole joined me for the last half-hour today to commiserate from one mom to another…. 

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