“When it comes to selecting a commencement speaker, the nation’s top 100 universities lean decidedly left,” Fox News argues.  My debate with Kevin Hassett, Director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, on KPCC’s “Air Talk” with Larry Mantle.
http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2013/05/30/32034/few-colleges-invite-conservatives-to-be-keynote-sp/

For the record: oday’s show on KPFK was pre-empted by special fund drive programming.

LISTEN online HERE— iTunes podcast HERE
On June 4 Bradley Manning goes on trial, charged with espionage and “aiding the enemy,” for releasing to Wikileaks, and the New York Times and The Guardian, hundreds of thousands of classified files documenting widespread civilian casualties, torture, and corruption in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.  Now an amazing new film explores the David and Goliath story of one man with a computer against the world’s most powerful nation: “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.”
We’ll speak with filmmaker ALEX GIBNEY—his other films include “Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room,” and  “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which won the Oscar for best feature documentary.
“We Steal Secrets” opens in LA and New York Friday May 24.  WATCH the trailer HERE.
Bradley Manning Support Network, with Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky: HERE.

Live music from RY COODER: his new song protesting the Koch Bros. attempted take-over of the LA Times: broadcast from KPFK Wednesday.   He sang it for the first time at the protest against the Koch Bros, downtown LA on Tuesday.
Streaming audio now at http://archive.kpfk.org/m3u.php?mp3fil=15177
“we don’t want your millions mister
we don’t want your watch and chain
All we want is our news-paper
give us back the Times again.”

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
Back from Baghdad: MARK LeVINE reports on Iraq ten years after the US invasion.  Mark teaches the history of the modern Middle East at UC Irvine and writes for Al Jazeera English.

 Also: “No Koch brothers hate in LA” – That was the slogan of a demonstration yesterday by labor unions, environmentalists and public interest advocates who rallied against the proposed takeover of the LA Times by David and Charles Koch.
Featured at the rally – a new song by our own RY COODER about the Koch Brothers and the LA Times. we will feature Ry’s brand new recording of the song.

Plus: A new book about Gore Vidal: I TOLD YOU SO: GORE VIDAL TALKS POLITICS—Interviews with Jon Wiener.  It’s our featured thank-you gift in the KPFK fund drive this hour—please call and pledge during the show, 818-985-5735.

And we’ll also have Your Minnesota Moment: yesterday governor Mark Dayton signed a bill legalizing gay marriage.

LISTEN online HERE— SUBSCRIBE to iTunes podcast HERE
From the Center for the Study of Dirty Wars: our guest is JEREMY SCAHILL – he’s National Security correspondent for The Nation, and he wrote the bestseller Blackwater: Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.  And he’s appeared regularly on the Rachel Maddow show, Real Time with Bill Maher and Democracy Now!   His new book is DIRTY WARS: The World is a Battlefield.. It enters the New York Times bestseller list at #5 this Sunday.

Also: our Washington political update with HAROLD MEYERSON – he writes a column for the Washington Post op-ed page, and he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect.

Plus: The US is only the most recent power to invade Afghanistan—and fail.  Of course the Soviets tried it from 1979 to 1989, and before that, the British tried – from 1839 to 1842.  Is there a lesson here?
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE thinks so—he’s written a terrific new book about the British effort, and its striking parallels to our own: RETURN OF A KING: the Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42.