Trump Watch

Was the election stolen? Did something more foul than minor slip-ups and routine political chicanery occur? DAVID CORN of The Nation has been investigating: he concludes that those who say yes–at this point–are relying more on supposition than evidence. David Corn wrote the book The Lies of George W. Bush.

Plus: historian SEAN WILENTZ says the real electoral division isn’t between the coasts and the heartland. It’s between cities all over the United States and the rest of the country. Sean writes for the L.A. Times op-ed page; he is co-editor of The Rose and the Briar, a new book about American ballads.

And TORIE OSBORN of the Liberty Hill Foundation talks about what we lost — and what we can learn — from last Tuesday’s election.

And DAVID COLE comments on the resignation of John Ashcroft — who, as Cole wrote for The Nation, is “zero for 5,000” in prosecuting 9-11 terrorists. David’s book is Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism.

Web Extra: “SORRY EVERYBODY” http://www.sorryeverybody.com/ -or- http://72.3.131.10/gallery/1/: a wonderful new site where people post photos and messages apologizing to the world for Bush’s election — you gotta check this out, and flip through the hundreds of postings.

How did Bush win? comment and analysis on last night’s disaster from

ROBERT SCHEER of the L.A. Times — he co-authored The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq;

HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the American Prosect;

JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation — he wroteDick: The Man who Is President ;

and TOM FRANK; his book What’s the Matter with Kansas? seems especially relevant; it’s about the fact that so many working class and poor voters in the middle of the country “insist on re-electing the very people who are screwing them.”

ERIC SCHLOSSER, author of the classic Fast Food Nation, talks about Prop. 72, requiring big companies to provide health insurance for workers — like the people who work for MacDonalds. Eric writes for the L.A. Times op-ed page and other publications.
More info: www.yesonprop72.com/

Also: “Yes on 66,” the initiative to amend the Three Strikes Law to limit it to violent felonies: GERI SILVA of Families to Amend Three Strikes and DOROTHY ERSKINE will explain.

Plus: LIBERTY VOTE is a poineering “voter engagement” campaign of the Liberty Hill Foundation to change the political culture in low-income neighborhoods — we?ll speak with campaign manager KAFI WATLINGTON-MACLEOD.
Read Jon Wiener in The Nation on Liberty Vote:

finally: Polls show the voters evenly divided; Can Kerry win? JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation has been following the campaign: he writes “The Online Beat” for TheNation.com, and his new book is Dick: The Man who Is President.

JOHN SAYLES, award winning independent filmmaker whose films include “Return of the Secaucus Seven,” “Brother from Another Planet,” “Matewan” and “Sunshine State” — now he’s published a book of short stories, Dillinger in Hollywood

Plus: JOHN NICHOLS, he writes “The Online Beat” for The Nation, talks about the campaign and Dick Cheney — his new book is Dick: The Man who is President.

Also: ART SPIEGELMAN won the Pulitzer Prize for his Holocaust story Maus — now he’s done comix about 9-11, the book In the Shadow of No Towers — a Sept. 11 story that is both highly personal and intensely political.

Web extra: “Rocking the Youth Vote” — how Bruce Springsteen, REM and the Dixie Chicks are following John Lennon’s strategy from 1972: www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041025&s=wiener

ART SPIEGELMAN, who won the Pulitzer prize for Maus, a Holocaust story, has a new graphic book out: In the Shadow of No Towers — a Sept. 11 story that is both highly personal and intensely political. “I hadn’t anticipated that the hijackings of September 11 would themselves be hijacked by the Bush cabal that reduced it all to a war recruitment poster.”

Plus: GISH JEN: her new novel, The Love Wife, is a candid, delightful and imaginative story about cultural collisions in one Asian-American family.

Also: Dick Cheney debated on TV last night — JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation magazine comments on “the man who is president.” John writes The Online Beat column for The Nation; his new book is Dick: the Man Who is President.

WEB EXTRA: SEE drawings about 9-11 from Art Spiegelman’s new book:
http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/towersShoe.html

FRANK RICH, who writes those great essays about politics and popular culture in the New York Times every Sunday, will talk about politics, fiction, and the new Philip Roth novel, The Plot Against America, in which a fascist is elected president of the U.S. — in 1940.

Also: IAN WILLIAMS, UN Correspondent for The Nation, will preview the upcoming presidential TV “debate” –and talk about whether Bush’s Vietnam-era record in the Texas Air National Guard is now off-limits in the mainstream media. Ian’s new book is Deserter: George Bush’s War against Military Families, Veterans, and his Past.

Plus: “THE YES MEN” is a movie that follows a couple of anti-corporate activist-pranksters as they impersonate World Trade Organization spokesmen on TV and at business conferences around the world. “We target people we see as criminals,” the Yes Men explain, “and we steal their identities to try to make them honest.” Ella Taylor of the LA Weekly calls the film “an uproarious and appalling piece of consciousness-raising.” (“The Yes Men” is currently playing in LA at the ArcLight and Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex.)

WEB EXTRA: Watch “The Yes Men” movie trailer online: http://www.theyesmenmovie.com/intro.html

HOWARD ZINN talks about Kerry, Iraq, and activism — and the new film about his life, “Howard Zinn: You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train.” It opens in LA at the Music Hall Friday Oct. 15. “He has changed the consciousness of a generation” — Noam Chomsky.
LISTEN TO HOWARD ZINN AUDIO ONLINE: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/audioblog?pid=1853

from the archives: MacArthur award winner DAVID WILSON talks about the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Plus: cultural comedies and political tragedies: LAWRENCE WESCHLER talks about his new book Vermeer in Bosnia. He’s speaking at the L.A. Public Library Thursday at 7. “There’s no writer alive with more raw and contagious enthusiasm for the world” –Dave Eggers.

MARJANE SATRAPI‘s comic strip memoir Persepolis described growing up in the Iran of the Ayotollas as the daughter of Marxist radicals; the book was captivating, funny and smart. Now the sequel is out: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return: it’s about her teenage years: sex, drugs, rock n roll — and a million dead in the Iran-Iraq war. She’ll talk about her life and work.

Also: What should Kerry do? HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly, the American Prospect and the Washington Post op-ed page has some ideas.

Plus: How they could steal the election: RONNIE DUGGER will explain; he knows more about the problems with computerized voting than anyone alive. He’s the founding editor of The Texas Observer and has written biographies of Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, as well as hundreds of articles for Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Yorker, and The Progressive.
LISTEN TO RONNIE DUGGER AUDIO ONLINE: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/audioblog?pid=1843

What Kerry can do to fight Bush’s war psychology: PAUL KRUGMAN: the New York Times op-ed columnist explains. His book is The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century.

Plus: American deaths in Iraq reached the 1,000 mark yesterday — and the number of Iraqis killed in the war is uncounted. ANNE GARRELS will comment; she was back in Baghdad for NPR last month. Her book is Naked in Baghdad; she’ll be at Writers Bloc tonight/Wed. at 730 in conversation with Robert Greenwald at the Writers Guild Theater, 135 S. Doheny, Beverly Hills.

And the REVEREND BILLY of the Church of Stop Shopping will be in court next week challenging an injunction that bans him from coming within 250 yards of “all the Starbucks in the State of California.” The injunction reads: “The defendent shall not annoy, harass, strike, threaten, sexually assault, batter, stalk, destroy personal property of, or otherwise disturb the peace of the… Starbucks Corporation.” The Rev. Billy asks, “Is this taking the ‘personhood of the corporation’ over the top?”

WEB EXTRA: take a look at the new TV ad from “Texans for Truth” about Bush’s air national guard service: http://texansfortruth.org/

This week in New York, as Republicans gathered in Madison Square Garden for their convention, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to say no to the Bush Agenda. Liza Featherstone was there and will report. http://alternet.org/waroniraq/15196/

Also: In Iraq the battle of Najaf is over: But who won? Ian Williams, UN Correspondent for The Nation, will have comment and analysis. His new book is Deserter: George Bush’s War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past.

Plus: the Bush White House announced a change in American policy towards Israeli settlements in occupied territory. We’ll have an update on Mideast news from Roane Carey, editor of The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent.

And Bernardine Dohrn talks about the Weather Underground; she lived underground for most of the seventies. Now the award-winning “Weather Underground” documentary is out on DVD.

Web Extra: Check out the GREAT “Real People” TV spots (“I voted for Bush in 2000, but I’m voting for Kerry in 2004”) directed by Errol Morris. Online at https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/switchad_winners.html