Good, Bad, Ugly

 

 

With our news dominated by so much ugly these days, I was happy to have something good to talk about. Her name is Malala Yousafzai, and yesterday she accepted her Nobel Peace Prize– the youngest recipient ever.

I played a short excerpt of her speech this morning for Amy Simon, who joined in from She’s History during the second hour of today’s show. Should you have the time and want some beautiful inspiration, watch the whole thing here:

 

THE GOOD

THE BAD

The bad comes from the awful “Cromnibus” spending bill that passed the House following the end of this morning’s show (without a single Democratic vote), despite some horrific provisions that were secretly inserted at the last-minute.

Elizabeth Warren took to the Senate floor yesterday to implore her House colleagues to vote against the bill, due to the worst provision at all- one that would undo a major protection against banksters gambling in the Dodd-Frank legislation.

The provision would no longer require that big banks separate trades in financial derivatives from traditional bank accounts, which are backed by the government through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The derivatives played a key role in the financial collapse.

Since the bill passed the House this morning, the ball is in Senator Warren’s court. She could, conceivably, put a hold on it. Stay tuned….

THE UGLY

Report Summary

If ever we got ugly news, the torture report is it. This morning,I was joined Vice NewsJason Leopold, who’s been covering our “detainee problem,” Gitmo and torture longer and better than just about anyone else. Find all of Jason’s reporting for Vice here, and bookmark it, as there’s certainly much more to come.

And while you’re reading about the torture of Abu Zubayda, you might also want to read the Abu Zubayda diaries, uncovered and reported on by Jason Leopold for Al Jazeera America…. 

I’ll be back tomorrow to wrap up the week with music and marijuana! I’ll be joined by the author of the new book, Weed Land And for our Flashback Friday segment, we’ll go back to 1994 with The Wallflowers! Talk to you then, radio or not!