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How low can they go? HAROLD MEYERSON looks at the last-minute tactics of a party facing electoral disaster. “Stay the course,” he says, has been replaced by “anything goes” — “so long as it helps the Republicans cling to power.” Harold is executive editor of The American Prospect and op-ed page columnist for the Washington Post–READ his column today, “How the Republicans Lost the North.”

Also: Vote fraud on election day? Can hackers get into the new electronic voting machines? How successful will Republican voter suppression efforts be? Without a paper trail, how can we verify that election returns are accurate? ANDREW GUMBEL will report: he’s the author of Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America (Nation Books) and a US correspondent for The Independent of London. READ Andrew Gumbel’s “Guardian of the Ballot Box” in The Nation.

PLUS: Is Arnold’s star power irresistible? We’ll have SHEILA KUEHL’s analysis of California state races and ballots – including what may be the most important statewide campaign: Debra Bowen for Secretary of State – she has cricitized her oppenent’s certifying the Diebold voting machines, and is running an ad on “Diebold After Dark”. Sheila Kuehl is state senator from Santa Monica, and a Democrat.

WEB EXTRA: “New Voter ID requirement: Platinum AmEx Card” – my piece at TheNation.com.

MORE STUFF TO READ: My new piece at the L.A. Times Book Review: “Following the Leaders: Hitler & FDR.”

LIVE THURS NITE: I will be in conversation with David Nasaw talking about his new book Andrew Carnegie, featured on this show last week. We’ll be at the downtown LA Public Library, 5^th and Flower streets, 7pm – reserve tickets online.

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It’s the ugly season of the political cycle, JOHN NICHOLS says: “the time when election day looms close enough that politicians, parties and pundits are willing to utter just about any claim, any innuendo, and libel in order to sway a vote” — especially the increasingly desperate Republicans. John is Washington Correspondent for The Nation magazine and writes “The Online Beat” blog at TheNation.com. His new is book is The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism.

Also: ANDREW CARNEGIE has been hated by the labor movement ever since the 1892 Homestead Strike, when Carnegie Steel called in a private army of Pinkerton detectives to battle its own employees.
Afterwards, the state of Pennsylvania charged 33 strike leaders with treason. Carnegie Steel remained nonunion for the next 40 years, and Andrew Carnegie went on to become the richest man in the world and a great philanthropist, funding thousands of local public libraries. DAVID NASAW will explain it all – his new book is Andrew Carnegie.
SEE David Nasaw at the downtown LA Public Library, Thurs 11/2, 7pm.

Plus: The Palestinian struggle for statehood: when the UN created the state of Israel in 1948, why did Palestinian society crumble so rapidly? Why there was not more concerted resistance to the process of dispossession?
RASHID KHALIDI points to the British colonial system, to the cynicism of Arab leaders, to the policy US support for Israel – but he also points to failures of Palestinian leadership starting in the 1930s and continuing through Yasir Arafat. Rashid Khalidi is director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University, where he holds the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies; his new book is The Iron Cage: The Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.
SEE Rashid Khalidi at UCLA: Thurs 10/26 – 7pm, Moore Hall;
SEE Rashid Khalidi at Pomona College: Thurs 10/26 – 11am, 333 N. College Way.

No show today — the KPFK Fund Drive continues!

The documentary “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” is playing this week in LA at the Beverly Center 13, in Pasadena at Laemmle’s One Colorado, in Irvine at the Edwards University Town Center, and also in Laguna Niguel, Temecula, La Jolla, Santa Cruz, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, and in New York City at the Sunshine Cinemas on Houston Street.

More stuff to read: “America, Through a Glass Darkly” – my piece about Richard Hofstadter from the new issue of The Nation, online at www.thenation.com.

No show today – preempted by the KPFK Fund Drive.

Your Minnesota Moment: The first Muslim is about to be elected to Congress – he’s Keith Ellison, he’s black, he’s a Democrat, and he’s from Minneapolis: read about him in the New York Times — more info at http://www.keithellison.org/

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The Republicans are the party of extremism – war without end, torture without law, and of course tax cuts for you-know-who. But the House is up for grabs– and now maybe the Senate too. Can the Democrats win? HAROLD MEYERSON has some answers: he writes for the American Prospect and the Washington Post op-ed page.

Also: Classroom politics and ‘Bias’ in our colleges and universities: Michael Bérubé is one of the 101 most dangerous academics in America, according to David Horowitz; Michael says universities are being targeted by the right because they’re the last fortress of liberalism. Michael teaches at Penn State; his book is What’s Liberal about the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and ‘Bias’ in Higher Education.

YOUR MINNESOTA MOMENT: Former Minneapolis FBI agent Coleen Rowley is running for Congress — as a Democrat. She’s the one who tried to warn higher-ups about the terrorists learning to fly passenger planes before 9-11.

Plus: GREIL MARCUS on the promise, and the betrayal, of America: he says “The promises America made it itself were so vast they could only be betrayed – and from that betrayal emerged the nation’s prophetic voice. It is this voice that calls America’s citizens to judgment: not the judgment of God, but a judgment they must render on themselves.” Greil’s new book is The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice.

More stuff to read: “CIA-FBI Cooperation: The Case of John Lennon,” my new piece at the HuffingtonPost.com.

At the movies: “The U.S. vs. John Lennon” is now playing in 17 cities, including L.A., Irvine, Santa Barbara — and Minneapolis.

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The selling of Bush’s Iraq disaster is one of the key stories of the last half-century. DAVID CORN, Washington editor of The Nation, connects the dots between Bush’s hatred of Saddam, the bitter battles between the CIA and the White House, and the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. David’s book, co-authored with Michael Isikoff, is Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War; it’s #8 on the best-seller list this week.
Web extra: David Corn debates Christopher Hitchens at Slate.com

Also: how JOHN LENNON joined the anti-war movement in Britain: TARIQ ALI explains; he was one of Lennon’s key friends in London’s New Left in the late sixties. Tariq is featured in the new documentary “The U.S. vs. John Lennon,” which will be playing citywide in Los Angeles starting Friday.
PLAYLIST: Beatles “Revolution” (fast version from single, Past Masters v2); Lennon “Power to the People”; Beatles “Revolution 1” (slow version from the White Album)

Plus: Corporate Greed in Iraq: billions of US taxpayer dollars have been stolen or wasted in Iraq by companies like Hallburton while Iraqis suffer and their country disintegrates. T. Christian Miller will tell that story; he’s an investigative reporter for the LA Times, and his new book is Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq.

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“IRAQ FOR SALE: THE WAR PROFITEERS” is the powerful new documentary about what happens to ordinary Americans when corporations go to war. In the film, by Robert Greenwald, soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children talk about how their lives have been shattered by profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. RICK JACOBS will talk about the film – he’s co-executive producer. He’s also Chair of the Courage Campaign, and he chaired the presidential campaign of Howard Dean in California. He writes for The Huffington Post.
Watch the trailer for “Iraq for Sale” — Order the DVD

Also: THE POLITICS OF TORTURE: George Bush wants to torture – but some key Republican senators don’t: HAROLD MEYERSON talks about the Senate Armed Services Committee rejecting the President’s military detainee bill. One key issue: the accountability of high government officials for war crimes. Harold writes for the Washington Post op-ed page, the LA Weekly, and the American Prospect.

Plus: THE HIDDEN LIFE OF GARBAGE: Heather Rogers explores the underworld of garbage and the meaning of what we throw away. The U.S. is the planet’s number one producer of trash; the average American throws out 4.5 pounds daily. Heather Rogers is a filmmaker and journalist who has written for The Nation, Utne Reader, and Punk Planet. Her book is Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage.

More Stuff to Read: “‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon‘: Politics and Music, Then and Now,” my new piece at TheNation.com — the film is playing now in LA and NYC.

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The fifth anniversary of 9-11 is coming up, which makes us wonder how safe we are: David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz ask ARE WE READY? They’ll talk about how 9-11 permanently altered the political, cultural, and organizational life of the country, and consider whether we are now better prepared to withstand another potentially devastating attack. Their new book is Are We Ready? Public Health since 9/11.

Plus: WHAT IS HEZBOLLAH? JUAN COLE explains that it’s not a terrorist network like Al Qaeda – he writes the key blog on the Mideast, “Informed Comment,” teaches history at the U. of Michigan, and is past president of the Middle East Studies Association.

Plus: AMY WILENTZ talks about what it’s like for a Jersey Girl who moves to L.A. – she analyzes the Schwarzenegger thing, and she ridicules the rich in her new book I Feel Earthquakes More Often than they Happen. Amy was Jerusalem corresponent for The New Yorker and is a contributing editor of The Nation. She will be reading and signing at Vromans Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, Thurs 9/7, 7pm.

Web extra: Your Minnesota Moment: “Once a Progressive State, Minnesota Is Now a Fief of the N.R.A.,” a great piece by Verlyn Klinkenborg in Tuesday’s New York Times.

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On the one-year anniversary of Katrina, we turn to ANDREI CODRESCU for comment. For two decades he’s been living in and writing about his adopted city. “Katrina was only a storm,” he said recently, “but what followed was so hideous that, one year later, we can only shake our heads — and vomit.” Andrei’s book New Orleans, Mon Amour is an epic love song, a clear-eyed elegy, a cultural celebration, and a thank-you note to New Orleans in its Golden Age.

PLUS: The ex-gay movement: Every year, hundreds of gay men and lesbians join ex-gay ministries in an attempt to convert to non-homosexual Christian lives. Tanya Erzen has followed the New Hope Ministry in Northern California, a Christian Right organization that insists that “change is possible.” Tanya teaches at Ohio State; her book is Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement.

ALSO: BOB DYLAN’s new CD Modern Times was released yesterday — “I am tryin’ to love my neighbor . . . but, oh mother, things ain’t going well.” SEAN WILENTZ will comment; he’s the official historian at BobDylan.com, and was nominated for a Grammy for his liner notes to Bob Dylan Live 1966. PLAYLIST: “Thunder on the Mountain.” “Workingman’s Blues #2,” “Ain’t Talkin’,” “The Levee’s Gonna Break”

More stuff to read: Jon Wiener on the LA Times op-ed page: “Iraq isn’t the Philippines”