Program Notes for Left Out (March 30, 2004)

Welcome to Left Out on WRCT 88.3FM. Left Out is a public affairs program dedicated to presenting news and views from a perspective left out of the mainstream news. Left Out is co-hosted by Robert Harper and Danny Sleator. Today's program is produced by Jay Thurber. Listeners are welcome to call us at 412 621-WRCT (9728) or 412 268-WRCT (9728), or to send email to robert@leftout.info.

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Listen to the broadcast (requires MP3 player).

Announcements

Richard Clarke's Revelations

The combination of Richard Clarke's new book Against All Enemies, combined with his public testimony to the 9/11 commission, has sent the Bush administration into a confused frenzy trying to discredit Clarke and deny his accusations without, of course, addressing their substance. But who can doubt that much of what he says is true?

Clarke's testimony may well be the crucial tipping point for Bush and his incompetent masters. Despite the barrage of baloney from Faux News and other mainstream sources, Americans are beginning to recognize the fraud and incompetence at the core of this government.

Ashcroft's Incompetence at Protecting the U.S. Against Terrorism

The Center for American Progress has obtained internal documents from the Bush administration showing Attorney General John Ashcroft's complete and total disregard for terrorism in his management of the Justice Department in 2001. Yet this article has hardly been reported in the mainstream press. In short Janet Reno's recommendations on funding for anti-terrorism activity were completely disregarded by Ashcroft who, along with the rest of the Bush administration, regarded everything from the Clinton administration as being axiomatically wrong. Trouble is, the Clinton people were right about terrorism, as the documents shown here (among many other sources) make clear.

Powell's Eyewitnesses to Mobile Weapons Laboratories

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Powell's "eyewitness reports" of mobile weapons laboratories in Iraq came from a single source, a close associate of Ahmad Chalabi who, like Chalabi, was a convicted felon and known fabricator. David Kay's comment "If Powell had said to the Security Council: 'It's one source, we never actually talked to him, and we don't know his name,' as he's describing this, I think people would have laughed us out of court. " about sums it up.

Fraud and Intimidation

The Bush administration's fraudulent misrepresentation of their Medicare Bill has already been discussed before on Left Out. The Bush administration's idea of fiscal responsibility is to lie about the cost of the program in order to get the bill through Congress, and to ensure that it contains provisions to prevent the U.S. government from negotiating the prices of prescription drugs that it will buy in bulk as part of the program. Knight-Ridder reported that Medicare's chief cost analyst, Richard Foster, was threatened with the loss of his job if he disclosed the facts about the true cost of this bill, which was underreported by at least 139 billion dollars.

We mentioned Worse than Watergate, a new book by John W. Dean, during our program, so I've included this link to it.

Sources


Left Out Home Page
Robert Harper
Last modified: Wed Mar 31 21:15:05 EST 2004