He did it. The President actually showed some backbone and kicked McChrystal to the curb. Unfortunately, he put General David Petraeus back in to run the Afghanistan war theater; the same general who just last week said that the July 2011 date for beginning withdrawal of our troops was “nuanced.” Grrr.

We’ll talk a bit about that on tonight’s show.  And we’ve got a full slate of great guests joining in too.

Christy Harvey of the Center for American Progress returns from a few weeks off. She’ll bring some of the stories we might otherwise have missed.

Although BP was likely loving the McChrystal controversy, they spewed their was back into the news today when the containment cap was removed, allowing something in the neighborhood of 60,000 barrels of oil to gush into the Gulf unabated.  Our friend Dr. David Summers (who blogs as “Heading Out” at TheOilDrum.com will attempt to explain to us what happened today.

In hour two, after a report from the Talk Radio News Service, we’ll discuss corporate personhood and how to fix this problem with David Cobb.

July 21, 2010 was a truly awful day. In addition to being the day that Air America closed its doors, it was also the day that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down it’s fatally flawed decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Since that time, many groups have formed to fight the idea of corporate personhood. One of the most promising is a coalition of groups, Move To Amend, who are working toward a Constitutional amendment that would:

  • Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
  • Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
  • Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate “preemption” actions by global, national, and state governments.

David Cobb was the Green Party nominee for President of the United States in 2004, and served as the General Counsel for the national Green Party from it’s creation until 2003 when he launched his campaign.

His entire legal career has been dedicated to challenging illegitimate corporate power and to to making the promise of democracy a reality.

In 2002 he ran for state Attorney General in Texas, pledging to revoke the charters of corporations that repeatedly break heath, safety and environmental laws.

He is a national spokesperson for MoveToAmend which  is a coalition of national and grassroots groups calling to amend the Constitution to abolish the legal doctrine that allows corporations to claim constitutional rights.