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From The PBS Newshour Hunger in America:

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight: hunger in America. Jeffrey Brown has our story.

JEFFREY BROWN: One in seven American households had a hard time putting enough food on the table last year, that from a new report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- 14.6 percent of U.S. households, nearly 50 million Americans, found themselves in need during 2008, an increase of 13 million people from the year before. The new figure is the highest since data collection began in 1995.

The USDA called the problem food insecurity, instead of hunger. But, by any name, President Obama said, the findings were unsettling. And his secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack, said it's a -- quote -- "wakeup call for the country."

Inside those numbers, a more dire toll: One-third of those in need said they have been forced to skip meals, cut portions significantly, or go without food altogether.

Cynthia Sibley helps coordinate the Simple Supper, a community meal and food bank run from a Methodist church in Eagle, Colorado. She says the recession has affected many levels of her community.

CYNTHIA SIBLEY, Simple Supper: It's hitting people that -- it's surprising a lot of us. And all of us here are feeling it in one way or another. And we know people who have either lost their homes, lost their jobs. It's -- you know, it's shaking us to the core. And I know that there are a lot of places across the country that this is occurring, but to see it, you know, firsthand and experience it...

JEFFREY BROWN: Nationwide, the report said, 17 million children did not have enough to eat last year. And the Agriculture Department predicted the numbers for this year are likely to be worse still.

And now to some close-to-the-ground views from two regions. J.C. Dwyer is with the Texas Food Bank Network, a nonprofit statewide group. He joins us from San Antonio. Lynn Brantley is president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank in the Washington, D.C., metro area.

Mr. Dwyer, I wonder, first, did this report surprise you, based on what you're seeing there?

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November 13, 2009 PBS News Hour

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From NOW on PBS--Power Struggle. More available here.

This is what I hate having to explain to my relatives and friends abroad in Europe about politics in the US. We know that global warming is a fact. We know that our actions, if they didn't cause global warming, definitely exacerbate it. We know that we must reduce our dependency on oil, for both ecological and political/strategic reasons. And yet, what we are able to do is hampered so predictably by the Republican party:

Here we go again. James Inhofe, the most prominent climate change denier in the United States Senate, has concocted a new and innovative strategy to thwart the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. To wit, he and his Republican colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee have worked up a plan to simply not show up for next week’s markup:

But Boxer cannot hold the markup unless at least two Republicans show up, and EPW ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) signaled that he has unanimous support among the panel’s minority members to boycott the session until they get more data on the legislation from U.S. EPA and the Congressional Budget Office.

Inhofe said he will wait for Boxer to file an official notice of the markup — expected today — before responding with his own declaration of the GOP’s markup strategy.

“As soon as we find out what her announcement is and what she wants to do, we’ll have our response,” Inhofe told E&E last night. “We’ll have our unanimous expression ready.”

Sadly, this is a continuation of the GOP’s longstanding strategy of delaying clean energy legislation:

• As Chairman Markey shepherded his American Clean Energy and Security Act through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republicans employed multiple parliamentary tricks to — as Politico put it — “nitpick the bill into legislative oblivion.” Brian Beutler called these nefarious stall tactics, and noted that Democrats responded by hiring a speed reader.
• Last year during the debate over the Climate Security Act, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded that the entire 491 page bill be read on the floor of the United States Senate. A strategy memo was leaked at the time detailing the Republican strategy for delaying the bill as much as humanly possible.

While this Republican obstructionism is not necessarily surprising, it is especially egregious this time. Here are a few things about this episode that struck me:

1. Despite the fact that Senator Inhofe has been working to orchestrate this obstruction for a week now, Republicans are pretending the effort is being led by the two moderate Republicans on the committee. Politico handled the stenography.

The Politco, acting as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party? Say it isn't so!

Can you imagine how much further we'd get in this country if we didn't have so many idiots in office?

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Jane Mayer's expose in the The New Yorker explains how the U.S. is conducting a secret war in Pakistan using unmanned Predator drones. Americans have largely come to accept the Predator drone strikes as necessary but PBS' Tavis Smiley warned the attacks could turn futures generations against the U.S. "Killing is killing and somebody ought to say that," Smiley said Sunday on NBC.

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Frontline Oct. 20, 2009. The Warning:

In the midst of the 1990's bull market, one lone regulator warned about derivatives' dangers--and overnight became the enemy of some of the most powerful people in Washington.

You can watch the entire program on line here as well as additional invertiews with Brooksley Born, Gary Gensler, Michael Greenberger, Arthur Levitt and Joseph Stiglitz.

From Frontline's interview with Brooksley Born:

Q: What's the message that you're trying to spread now in the ashes of what happened in 2008 and '09?

BORN: I think we have to close the regulatory gap. ... We cannot afford as a society to go forward with an enormous unregulated market that poses this kind of danger because it’ll happen again if we don't take the appropriate steps. ... We need to take a lesson from the existing futures markets where exchange trading has been safe. As much as possible of the over-the-counter derivatives market should be traded on a regulated derivatives exchange. The transaction should be cleared on a regulated clearinghouse. There should be robust federal regulation of any remaining OTC derivatives market. And personally, I think that remaining market should be limited as much as possible to no more than the customized contracts that are needed for specific businesses to hedge particular business risks. ...

Q: If this moment passes again, the consequences are what from your perspective?

BORN: I think we will have continuing danger from these markets and that we will have repeats of the financial crisis. It may differ in details, but there will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap over and over until we learn from experience.

Frontline also put together a video timeline of the events starting in 1987-today.

I highly recommend watching the entire hour at PBS's site, but here's one more portion I wanted to share here.

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From Charlie Rose on PBS, Andrew Ross Sorkin discusses his new book Too Big to Fail. I highly recommend watching the entire interview if you've got an hour to spare. Wall Street has not learned their lessons even after as Sorkin puts it "they saw the world was about to fall off of its axis".

Watch the full interview here. Transcript here.

ANDREW SORKIN: And part of the thing that’s so interesting about them is they really were thinking ahead. It’s remarkable, at least to me, a board meeting in
Moscow in June -- not in September, in June -- where they are talking...

CHARLIE ROSE: Goldman Sachs.

ANDREW SORKIN: A Goldman Sachs board meeting where they were talking about whether they need to become a bank holding company. Do they need deposits?

At one point they talk about whether they should buy -- are you ready for this -- AIG for the deposits, because they’re thinking if the future keeps going this direction where you need deposits and you need to be the equivalent of a bank holding company, maybe we should buy a company like that. Obviously it doesn’t go anywhere.

CHARLIE ROSE: Is there anything wrong with the fact that when AIG got all that TARP money they had to -- they paid out about $12, $13 billion to Goldman Sachs as a counterpart.

ANDREW SORKIN: I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time asking that question and tracing those two days. And I hope when you read it you really get to feel like you’re there and understand and appreciate what was going on.

And just to give it a little perspective, it really had happened now 24 hours after Lehman and Merrill had gone down, or Merrill had been sold to Bank of America.

The decision to give AIG $85 billion happened in the course of -- the first meeting was 8:00 a.m. Tuesday morning and by noon they decided to do it.

CHARLIE ROSE: Why did they do it?

ANDREW SORKIN: I think they saw the world was about to fall off of its axis. And, in fact, probably -- we were really quite close. And that would have been a very difficult decision.

Now, what they didn’t do was sit around the table, the conversation that we’ve had since then and say "Do you really need to pay out the full amounts to these banks? Could we give them a hair cut?"

CHARLIE ROSE: It was what, $40, $50 million?

ANDREW SORKIN: An extraordinary amount of money to banks throughout the world. And what if we’d gone into restructuring and said we’re not going to give you all this money? They didn’t have time to do that. They never really thought through that process. That never came up.

I mean, the funny and sad part about this entire book is many of the conversations -- the time, the amount of time that they are talking and thinking about these issues are much shorter than the amount of time we’ve been sitting and talking around this table now.

CHARLIE ROSE: How do you explain? Because they didn’t have time?

ANDREW SORKIN: There was no time. They were moving from meeting to meeting. They were running. They were racing. It really is -- it’s not a marathon, it’s a sprint. And they’re running out of their minds.

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October 20, 2009 PBS News Hour

The tenure of Berkeley law professor John Yoo has come under fire amid a backlash over the role he played in the Bush administration, advising on the legalities of now-controversial interrogation tactics used on terror suspects. Spencer Michels reports.

SPENCER MICHELS: Since the beginning of the school year, protesters dressed as prisoners or detainees have dogged law professor John Yoo at the University of California at Berkeley. They want the university to fire him for advising the Bush administration, as an attorney in the Justice Department, that it could legally torture suspected terrorists to get information.

PROTESTER: This is a not just a question of academic opinions. This is a question of war crimes. People like John Yoo, these people should be fired.

SPENCER MICHELS: Forty-two-year-old John Yoo has taught here since 1993, except for 2001 to 2003, when he worked for the Justice Department in the Office of Legal Counsel.

During those years, after 9/11, the U.S. was interrogating prisoners, suspected terrorists, at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Yoo wrote several memos on how far the interrogators could go in pressuring prisoners to reveal information. Those memos argued that techniques such as water- boarding, sleep deprivation, and exploiting a detainee's fear of insects were, in fact, legal.

Yoo's actions have reverberated throughout Boalt Hall, the Berkeley law school where Yoo teaches. Students and faculty are debating the bounds of academic freedom, and whether a professor should be held responsible for controversial work done outside the university.

DAVID ARABELLA, law student: I believe that he does have a right to teach here, because people can have controversial views. But, personally, I'm not going to enroll in his class.

SPENCER MICHELS: The law school dean, Christopher Edley, who has served in several Democratic administrations, has been besieged by messages, the majority against Professor Yoo.

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September 15, 2009 PBS News Hour

September 15, 2009 PBS News Hour -- U.N. Finds Evidence of War Crimes in Gaza Fighting

A U.N. report has concluded that both the Israeli military and armed Palestinian groups committed actions amounting to war crimes during December's three-week war in Gaza. Gwen Ifill speaks with an author of the report and the Israeli ambassador to the U.S.

Part 1

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Part 2 Israeli Response

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David Frum, who I don't agree with about much of anything came on Bill Moyers Journal this week, and he took Rush Limbaugh to task for calling President Obama a Nazi. I'm sure he's just put a big target on his head from the right wing hate mongers for even appearing on Moyers' show in the first place, but I'm glad to see at least one Republican speaking up and telling the truth about how dangerous this type of talk is. So here's something I thought I'd never say. Good for David Frum for speaking out on this matter.

BILL MOYERS: I'm reminded that you grew up in Canada.

DAVID FRUM: I did.

BILL MOYERS: Couldn't the conservative, a calm conservative make a case for that kind of national insurance plan in this country?

DAVID FRUM: Look, where those plans have grown up, as in Britain, for example, you've seen conservatives make their peace with them, as the British conservatives have done. And once something is integrated into the status quo of your country, it gets conservative. There are I think a lot of reasons not to regard it as a preferable system.

It stifles the possibility of innovation and diversity. It means that ideas that get into the minds of people in Washington are very difficult to get out. And it creates a -- it also creates this tremendous problem where every malfunction in the system becomes the fault of the politicians.

BILL MOYERS: You describe yourself as a calm conservative. But you have certainly aroused those to your right in the Republican Party. You know, talk show hosts like Mark Levin have come after you saying you're kneecapping your own. What about that?

DAVID FRUM: Look, a lot of the conservative movement in this country is conducting itself in a way that is tremendously destructive. Both of the basic constitutional compact of the requirements of good faith and of their own good sense. I mean, when you were going on the air and calling the President of the United States a Nazi as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly done. When Mark Levin -- you mentioned him -- he said the President of the United States is literally at war with the American people.

And then people begin, unsurprisingly, showing up at rallies with guns. Well, obviously, if the President were-- I mean, folks, if I believed the President of the United States were a Nazi, were planning a Fascist takeover, it would be contemptibly cowardly of me not to do everything in my power, including contemplating violence, to resist such a thing. Every decent person should do that.

That's why you don't say it when it's not true. And I mean, one of the ways that the constitutional system works is with some understanding that the people on the other side have slightly different priorities but they share your constitutional values. They have invested in the same system. The problems they've got are hard problems. And even if you don't like their answers, you have to have some restraint in the way you talk about them, as you would hope they would have about you.

And I think it's just outrageous. It is dangerous. It's dangerous for the whole constitutional system. Now, I'm absolutely prepared to fight with them. And by the way, it's dangerous to conservatives because the effect of the talk of people like Levin and Rush Limbaugh is to kill our cause with voters who are under 65.

You make that man the face and you say let us contrast him to Barack Obama who is maybe too expensive but who seems calm and judicious? That's an ugly comparison.

BILL MOYERS: For this appearance alone, your website, NewMajority.com, is going to be besieged by some of those folks, right?

DAVID FRUM: We have been besieged but this is a fight worth doing. And I have to say I'm thinking of changing our slogan. I'm adapting something from the old Panasonic folks, our new motto's going to be "just slightly ahead of our time." I know the conservatives of this country are not with me on these issues today. But I know equally well they will be with me on these issues in the future. They are just going to learn it, unfortunately, a harder way.

BILL MOYERS: The book is COMEBACK: CONSERVATISM THAT CAN WIN AGAIN. David Frum, thanks for being with me on the JOURNAL.

DAVID FRUM: Thank you.

VIRGINIA FOXX: Republicans have a better solution that won't put the government in charge of people's health care that will make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans. And that ensures affordable access for all Americans, and is pro life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.

You can watch the entire interview here.

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August 13, 2009 PBS News Hour

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August 11, 2009 PBS News Hour

My husband and I are big travel junkies and I love watching Rick Steves' various travelogues on PBS. But we had no idea of Steves' influence until a few years ago. While in Sorrento, Italy, we were looking for a place to feed our fussy toddler. It wasn't the dinner hour and most places were setting up for dinner. But at this one restaurant, the maitre d' outside offered to make our kid a little plate of food to satisfy her. So we went in and sat down to a pretty authentic meal. But we noticed that as we were eating, the whole restaurant filled up--quickly. There had to be 50 tables turned in the 90 minutes we were in the restaurant. And each one of those tables had one thing in common: someone had a copy of Rick Steves' book in their hand. All of them.

But it looks like Rick Steves may be delving into other interests:

Everybody knows that Democratic U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (WA-01) has long had his eye on the governor’s mansion, and is widely expected to give up his House seat to run for our state’s top office in 2012. But who of note has his eye on Rep. Inslee’s coveted House seat, once it becomes vacant?

Word is that noted travel writer and TV and radio personality Rick Steves is seriously considering giving up his globetrotting ways for an extended stay in the other Washington, and is already working the local Democratic circuit in preparation for a potential run. The latest evidence? Steves jumped at the offer to be the keynote speaker at the Snohomish County Dems’ Annual Gala fundraiser on Sept. 12.

Yes, I know, 2012 is quite a ways off, but it wasn’t so long ago that Inslee was a top candidate for the number one or two position in President Obama’s Department of Energy, giving Steves a more immediate opportunity to explore his own political ambitions. And it was during this time, with a potential special election looming, that Steves reportedly firmed up his intention to run.

Steves could be an incredible asset to the progressive community, as this profile in Salon shows. Recently, Steves branched out from his European travel to travel to Iran, which displayed an all-too-rare side of the depth of Iranian culture and humanity. His travelogues urge Americans to approach new cultures with appreciation and an open mind, and that's certainly an attitude we could use in DC. And based on his humongous fan base (and experience on those PBS pledge breaks), he should have no problem fund-raising.

July 20, 2009 Jim Lehrer PBS News Hour

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Part 2

h/t Progress Not Congress

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Tom Arnold is not exactly known as a towering intellect. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he's a very nice man; he's certainly built a pretty decent career in a notoriously difficult industry, no small feat. But when you think of politically astute Hollywood types, Tom Arnold isn't exactly the person that comes to mind.

Clearly, Hannity assumed that Arnold is a Republican (I'm guessing that Hannity's researchers got no further than a picture of Tom Arnold endorsing Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor, since Tom has publicly said he's a Democrat), because I can't imagine Hannity asking a Democrat on.

But the multi-millionaire Hannity (who is so out of touch with everyday Americans he insists that ham costs on 79 cents/pound) didn't count on the former meat packer from Iowa whose whole act centered around being a common man actually championing policies that help the average American, instead of the corporate oligarchy. Progress Not Congress breaks down some highlights:

00:58 – Blakeman says: We got Medicare and we got Medicaid, what did we get for it? We got abuse, fraud, and mismanagement.

01:11 Arnold replies: You don’t think the private sector has fraud and abuse (like the government)?

01:15 Blakeman replies: But not to the scale of government.

This whole exchange is laughable. The fact that Blakeman is even trying to claim that the private sector, which is strictly in business for profit, is not as corrupt as the government, is idiotic at best.

01:21 Blakeman asks: What’s your recourse if government provides you with substandard health care? What are you going to do, sue the government?

I would like to know what Mr. Blakeman thinks his recourse would be if he received substandard care from a private insurance company?

As for recourse if you are receiving substandard care from a public health plan, yes of course you can sue the government. Why would an American not be able to sue the government? It happens all the time.

But even before that, an American has a litany of contacts at their disposal in the form of public, elected officials that would act as the patient’s advocate, and they do it for free, and they would do it well because their job depends on making their constituents happy, and keeping their voters alive.

Blakeman has no idea what he is talking about.

01:59 Hannity says: You cannot deny someone care in this country because of their inability to pay…no it is not happening all of the time.

Hannity’s lack of knowledge on the issues is staggering. Hannity’s previous claim can be refuted in two ways.

1. It is true that if a patient comes to the emergency room of a hospital without health insurance, the hospital is required to treat them. The hospital can and will turn around and bill that patient for services rendered. This ultimately leads many down the road of bankruptcy. Keep in mind, that a woman with breast cancer, to build off of Hannity’s analogy, cannot go into a hospital and say “I need treatment, but I can’t pay for it.” The hospital is not required to, and most likely won’t, treat that woman’s condition.
2. Americans are denied care all of the time by insurance companies who refuse to cover certain procedures, or simply refuse to provide coverage to someone with a preexisting condition.

Tom Arnold was correct when he said “It’s happening all the time.”

Sean, Brad, dudes. You just got totally pwned by Tom Arnold.