Trump Watch

JOHN DEAN says the Bush White House is “Worse than Watergate” in its secrecy and deception — a live interview about his new book.

Plus: ERIC SCHLOSSER says “Make Peace with Pot.” His book Reefer Madness is out now in paperback.

Also: IAN WILLIAMS, UN Correspondent for The Nation, will have commentary and analysis of events in Falluja and Najaf, as well as the plans for the Israeli pullout from Gaza.

Film of the week: “The Agronomist” by Jonathan Demme, about Jean Dominique, one of Haiti?s most prominent human-rights fighters. At the Sunset Five, the UA Marketplace (Pasadena) and the Monica on 2nd Street in Santa Monica.

Web extra: take a look at the MoveOn TV ad on the Vietnam war records of Kerry and Bush.

The Weather Underground: BERNADINE DOHRN talks about the violent New Left group of the sixties, and the documentary that PBS is airing Tuesday April 27 at 1000pm.

Plus: “In Search of Hezbollah”: ADAM SHATZ interviewed the head of the Shiite “Party of God,” admired throughout the Muslim world for its successful resistance to Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon.
Adam is also editor of Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Israel and Zionism.

And KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, editor of The Nation, talks about Taking Back America And Taking Down the Radical Right.
Katrina also writes the “Editor’s Cut” blog at TheNation.com.
Katrina will be speaking at the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA on Sunday April 25 at 1230pm in Korn Convocation Hall.
and Katrina will be signing Taking Back America on Saturday 2:00-3:00pm at The Nation Booth #344, Royce Quad

400 George Bush says “I have a plan to end the war on terror” : HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the Washington Post will have political analysis.

415 “Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam” (Ted Kennedy said that): IAN WILLIAMS of The Nation comments on the news from Falluja.

430 Working at WalMart: DAVID SHIPLER, author of The Working Poor: Invisible in America, explains the problem.

445 RUBEN MARTINEZ has a new book out, a kaleidoscopic picture of immigrants moving to the US from India, Mexico, and Palestine: it’s called The New Americans. PBS video available at 888-572-8918.

NOTE: The Newsweek poll Saturday has Kerry ahead of Bush 50-43 — and 40% of Americans concerned that Iraq could become “another Vietnam.”

THE JOHN KERRY FBI FILE: back in 1971, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI considered John Kerry a possible threat to national security because of his outspoken protests against the war.
John Glionna of the LA Times reports; plus Gerald Nicosia, author of Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement.

Plus: HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and Washington Post, with political analysis of the storm around Richard Clarke’s argument that Bush ignored the threat of terrorism for months before 9-11.

— and MARC COOPER of The Nation talks about his new book, The Last Honest Place in America: Paradise and Perdition in the New Las Vegas. Marc will be reading and signing at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, Thursday at 7pm.

Web extras:
–The MoveOn.org TV ad featuring Richard Clarke
–The Billionaires for Bush TV ads— “you have nothing to lose except your job.”

SANDRA TSING LOH was fired by KCRW for a broadcast that included a forbidden word — she talks about timidity in public radio.
(She’s still doing commentaries on “Marketplace” — and moves to KPPC in June.)

ALSO: The Fountain at the Center of the World , by ROBERT NEWMAN — the New York Times called it “the Catch 22 of the anti-Globalization movement.”

and IAN WILLIAMS, UN correspondent for The Nation and contributor to the LA Weekly, will talk about Israel’s assassination of Hamas head Sheik Yassin.

WEB EXTRA: DENNIS MILLER‘s unbelievably condescending interview with ERIC ALTERMAN of The Nation about Bush’s lies– watch the video.

The first anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq :
— a report from UC Irvine historian MARK LeVINE of Occupation Watch live in Baghdad,
— and comment and analysis from HAROLD MEYERSON of the LA Weekly and the Washington Post.

Web extra: Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld got caught blatantly contradicting his past statements on the justifications for going to war, and we have the video clip. check it out at www.moveon.org/censure/caughtonvideo/

Web extra: 200 misleading statements on Iraq from the Bush Administration.

Also: WOODY GUTHRIE‘s music and politics: the definitive biography has just been published: Ramblin Man by Ed Cray: he’ll be live in-studio to talk about the man who wrote “This Land is Your Land.”

3 STRIKES/10 YEARS
This week is the 10th anniversary of California’s three strikes law — and the latest evidence is that it has NOT reduced crime, as its defenders claim. Today: comment and analysis from JOE DOMANICK of USC’s Annenberg Institute for Justice and Journalism — he’s just published Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America’s Golden State

the key facts: “Three Strikes Law has Little Effect, Study Finds”: L.A. Times

Plus Geri Silva of Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes, and Vince Schiraldi of the Justice Policy Institute; they call Three Strikes “A law that fails.”

Also: gay marriage is sweeping California; but will it help George Bush’s reelection campaign? State Senator SHEILA KUEHL comments; she’s been performing gay marriage ceremonies in San Francisco. And check out Lambda Legal on “Freedom to Marry”

SEYMOUR HERSH reported the My Lai Massacre; now in The New Yorker he shows that the Bush administration has tolerated a nightmarish nuclear weapons black market in Pakistan in return for permission for US troops to hunt Osama inside that country.

Also: our report on HAITI: AMY WILENTZ wrote the book The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier — in The Nation she says the coup d’etat in Haiti is the biggest event there since the revolution 200 years ago.

Plus political commentary on Kerry v. Bush from JOHN NICHOLS — he writes “The Online Beat” at www.TheNation.com.

4:00: Political update from HAROLD MEYERSON — after Kerry’s latest primary victories, we ask again: Can he beat Bush in November? Read Harold in the LA Weekly and the Washington Post .

4:20: INCOHERENT EMPIRE: that’s the title of Michael Mann‘s new book, where the UCLA sociologist argues that the US is better at devastating than pacifying countries — and unable to rule over foreign lands or control its own supposed client states. www.versobooks.com/books/klm/m-titles/mann_m_empire.shtml

4:40: ROBERT SCHEER talks about The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq — read Bob in the LA Times: “War as an excuse for everything.”

WEB EXTRA: check out the Cost-of-War website: http://costofwar.com/

also : Bush’s Air National Guard records from 1972 show that he apparently blew off drills beginning in May 1972, failed to show up for his physical, and was then grounded and transferred as a disciplinary measure. www.calpundit.com/archives/003220.html

Nat Turner led the bloodiest slave rebellion in American history — now, award-winning L.A. filmmaker Charles Burnett has made a fascinating one-hour film about the meanings of the Nat Turner rebellion today — the film will be broadcast Tues., Feb. 10 at 10pm on KCET. www.pbs.org/natturner

Primary results: John Kerry beat the other Democrats on Tuesday; can he beat Bush in November? David Corn of The Nation comments — his new book is The Lies of George W. Bush. www.bushlies.com see also www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1233

Also: Those worried that America might be slinking towards imperialism miss the point: America already has an empire. Chalmers Johnson explains — his new book is The Sorrows of Empire, and he will be reading and signing it on Sunday (Feb 8) at 3pm at Midnight Special on 2nd St. in Santa Monica. www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/01/01_200.html

web extra: the CNN poll published Monday has Kerry beating Bush 53-46. The poll showed Bush’s job approval rating at 49 percent among all the adults surveyed, the first time since he became president that his job approval has dipped below 50 percent. www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/02/elec04.poll.prez/index.html