Living in the USA

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The Obama Justice Department is threatening to jail reporter James Risen for refusing to reveal his source for a New York Times story about a botched CIA operation. “My answer,” he says, “is to keep writing.” His new book is Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War­.
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Plus: we’re still thinking about the crushing defeat the Democrats suffered at the ballot box last Tuesday – HAROLD MEYERSON has an analysis. Harold is editor at large of The American Prospect and columnist for the Washington Post.

Also: CHARLES M. BLOW is a columnist for the New York Times op-ed page, where he writes about politics and social issues. Now he’s written a memoir of growing up poor and black in rural Louisiana: it’s called Fire Shut up in my Bones. LISTEN to Charles’s “Writing Soundtrack” HERE.

Your Minnesota Moment: protests against the “Redskins” at the Vikings Game in Minneapolis last Sunday: story HERE

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JOHN NICHOLS on the elections: Republicans won a lot last night—while California remains overwhelmingly Democratic. The night’s lessons for the left, from the Washington correspondent for The Nation.

plus HARRY SHEARER on Nixon: the host of Le Show, star of Spinal Tap and voice of many characters on “The Simpsons” now has a six-part series where he recreates key moments in the Nixon White House–all dialgoue verbatim from the White House tapes. The series, produced for British TV, is playing now at YouTube HERE.

also KATHA POLLITT on abortion: How pro-choicers can take back the high moral ground. Abortion, she says, is a family value. Katha is a polemicist, poet and feminist – she writes a column for The Nation, and her new book is Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights.

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LAURA POITRAS: her terrific new film Citizenfour documents the week she and Glenn Greenwald met Edward Snowden in Hong Kong and he revealed the existence of mass NSA surveillance. The film is playing now in LA and other cities. WATCH the trailer HERE

Plus: our political update with JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation.

Also: Demon Dog radio!  JAMES ELLROY has written an an amazing new novel, Perfidia. It’s set in LA and begins the day before Pearl Harbor. Ellroy is the author of the L.A. Quartet: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz.  Both  L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia were made into memorable Hollywood films.

For the record:  “The Four O’Clock Report” on KPFK is preempted 10/8, 10/15 and 10/22 for special fund drive programming.

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Our hero NAOMI KLEIN has written the political book of the year: THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: Capitalism vs the Climate.  The problem of climate change, she says, is not carbon – it’s capitalism.   Naomi talks about how the climate crisis gives us the opportunity to transform our failed economic system and build something radically better.
WATCH the amazing trailer for This Changes Everything HERE.
READ Naomi in The Nation HERE.
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Plus: TOM FRANK on the wild world of Kansas politics—where the Democrats have pulled out of the Senate race–but an independent, Greg Orman, seems to be ahead of the incumbent Republican Pat Roberts.  Tom writes about politics for Salon.com – he is the author of the classic What’s the Matter with Kansas?

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ERWIN CHEMERINSKY says the Roberts Court’s conservative agenda is well known—but nothing new. The Court has largely failed throughout American history at its most important tasks and at the most important times. Erwin is founding dean of the law school at UC Irvine; his new book is The Case Against the Supreme Court.

 Also: Football head injuries — and domestic violence: DAVE ZIRIN asks whether the brutality of the game plays a role in the prevalence of players committing acts of violence against women.  Dave is sports writer for The Nation, and host of Sirius XM Radio’s weekly show, Edge of Sports Radio.

Plus: For-Profit Colleges: how they crush the American dream and create a mountain of debt for students: HANNAH APPEL will explain – she’s a mother, activist, and assistant professor of anthropology at UCLA who has been active with Occupy Wall Street since 2011. She wrote about for-profit colleges for TomDispatch.

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This Sunday New York City will be the site of the largest march in history for climate action—100,000 people. As part of the march, our hero NAOMI KLEIN is releasing her first book in seven years: This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. JOHN POWERS will comment: he interviewed Naomi for Vogue this month.
WATCH the trailer for This Changes Everything HERE.  READ Naomi in The Nation HERE.  SEE Naomi at the Hammer in Westwood 9/30, info HERE.
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Plus: ANDREW BACEVICH has grim & eloquent critique of our military system—he was an army officer for 23 years and now teaches at Boston U.  His book Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed their Soldiers & Their Country is out now in paperback. READ Rachel Maddow’s review in the NY Times Book Review, HERE.
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Also: trouble in Wisconsin: a panel of Republican judges reinstated the voter-ID law which had been thrown out by a lower court after careful scrutiny of its effects. JOHN NICHOLS of The Nation will explain – he’s in Scotland covering the vote on independence.

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“Peace may be the biggest threat to Hamas and to Israel’s leaders”: That’s what AMY WILENTZ says, she was The New Yorker’s Jerusalem correspondent, and is author of several award-winning books, including Martyrs’ Crossing, a novel set in Israel and the West Bank.  She’s written for the New York Times, Reuters and The Nation, and she teaches literary journalism at UC Irvine.

Plus: Remembering CHUCK BOWDEN: a fearless reporter and a fantastic writer who he died August 30 at age 69.   He saw before anyone else how Mexico’s drug war was coming to the borderlands, and he called America’s war on drugs “A wheel of pain that just keeps rolling.”  We spoke with him in February, 2003, just after he published Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, Family.
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 Also: LAILA LALAMI has written an amazing novel, The Moor’s Account, a fictional memoir of the first black explorer of America—a Moroccan slave who arrived with a group of conquistadores in Florida in 1527. Laila was born and raised in Morocco and teaches creative writing at UC Riverside; her work has has won many awards and been translated into ten languages.
She will be speaking tonight/Wed at 7:30 at Skylight Books, 1818 N Vermont in LA.

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How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops: ERWIN CHEMERINSKY says the Court has created “often insurmountable obstacles” to justice for victims of police abuse. Erwin is founding dean of the law school at UC Irvine and wrote about bad cops for the New York Times op-ed page.

Also: despite the suffering and misery in Gaza, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere in the Mideast, JUAN COLE says, a new generation of Arab men and women are using innovative notions of personal rights to challenge the authoritarianism, corruption, and stagnation that had afflicted their societies. Juan’s new book, The New Arabs, offers a provocative and optimistic argument about the future of the Arab world.
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Plus: How the black community of Ferguson, Missouri have shed their fear and asserted their humanity in ways big and small, beautiful and ugly: GARY YOUNGE was an eyewitness. He writes for The Guardian and The Nation—and he will be talking about his book The Speech: The Story Behind Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream at Esowon Books on Sept 9, next Tues, at 7pm –4327 Degnan Boulevard in Liemert Park.

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HAROLD MEYERSON says we need to do more than help low-wage workers – we need to “go after the one percent.”  Harold writes for the Washington Post op-ed page: HERE and HERE.

Plus: The surprising history of women’s movements – and what’s wrong with telling women to “Lean In” and be more confident: historian LINDA GORDON will explain.  Her new book is Feminism Unfinished—and she wrote about “The problem with ‘Lean In’” for the Huffington Post, HERE.

Also: RICHARD PRICE talks about Lush Life, his novel about contending social groups on the Lower East Side today—and the cops who police them.