TUESDAY MARCH 9. 2010 – 3PM
THE TIPPING POINT WITH ROSEANNE BARR
WITH CHRISTINE BLOSDALE SITTING IN FOR ROSEANNE
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3:00PM - The Peoples Victory on the McCain Bill. But Can We Rest Yet?
The organization Alliance for Natural Health has just announced that due to hundreds of thousands of messages that poured into the Senate opposing Senator John McCain's Dietary Supplement Safety Act (S 3002), a bill that would have wiped out current legislative protections for dietary supplements, that the pressure is working.
Word is now racing around Capitol Hill that Senator McCain met with Senator Orin Hatch and told him that he is withdrawing his support for the bill he authored. This means that the bill as written is now dead. But is this the end of the story? Not necessarily so.
To fill us in on the latest buzz around S3002 we welcome Jemma Salteri, Communications Director of the Alliance for Natural Health based out of Washington DC.
It’s time to celebrate your accomplishment. The democratic process worked. The people spoke and a powerful senator reversed course. It was all because of you, the active citizens willing to take time and make the effort to defend natural and sustainable forms of health and healthcare in the often hostile environment of Washington, DC. As we all know, Washington is ringed today with special commercial interests. They have millions of dollars of campaign contributions to hand out and gigantic lobbying budgets. But in the end, politicians have to answer to the people.
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3:20PM - The Stop Outsourcing Security Act
Refusing a rape victim her day in court. Callously shooting a defenseless nine-year-old boy. Diverting hundreds of AK-47s intended for Afghan police to someone posing as a character from “South Park.” Using tax dollars to pay for prostitutes.
If only that were the end of the list. The sins of private military contractors like Blackwater are seemingly endless, and when these acts are covered in the news (usually not the corporate media) many people just scratch their heads with disbelief and disgust that our tax dollars are funding such outrageous behavior.
In this segment we speak to Rebecca Griffin Political Director for Peace Action West about a new bill being introduced in the congress by Representative Janice Schakowsky and Senator Bernie Sanders.
The Stop Outsourcing Security Act - The percentage of contractors used in the war in Afghanistan is the highest ever in history. The surge of 30,000 troops approved by President Obama will be dwarfed by the accompanying 56,000 contractors expected to flood into the region. If we can’t fight wars with our own military, maybe it’s a sign we shouldn’t be in the wars in the first place.
Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have had enough. They’ve introduced the Stop Outsourcing Security Act, which would prohibit the use of private contractors for military and security functions.
Mohammed Kinani, whose nine-year-old son was killed by Blackwater employees in the Nisour Square shooting in Iraq, told The Nation "I wish the US Congress would ask [the head of Blackwater] why they killed my innocent son…. Do you think that this child was a threat to your company? This giant company that has the biggest weapons, the heaviest weapons, the planes, and this boy was a threat to them? I want Americans to know that this was a child that died for nothing.”
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3:40PM – Is the Federal Reserve a secretive organization that is largely run by the big banks it’s supposed to be regulating? We speak to a man who says that the Fed should be opened up, not given more powers such as the new consumer protection agency.
GUEST: ROBERT AUERBACH
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-auerbach
Robert is a Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and author of the book "Deception and Abuse at the Fed." He was also an economist with the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee during the tenure of four Federal Reserve Chairmen: Arthur Burns, William Miller, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan. If that wasn’t enough he also served as an economist in the U.S. Treasury's Office of Domestic Monetary Affairs during the first year of the Reagan administration and as a financial economist with the U.S. Federal Reserve System.
Rep. Ron Paul, who introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which has passed the House with over 300 co-sponsors, noted allegations that the Fed was involved with covering up some of the funding of the Watergate burglars as well as failing to effectively examine a small Italian bank through which the U.S. government sent Saddam Hussein funds in the 1980s.
Paul also raised questions about the Fed's disclosure policy. The Fed chairman immediately dismissed the allegations: "These specific allegations you've made I think are absolutely bizarre and I have absolutely no knowledge of anything remotely like what you just described. As far as the ten years [disclosure issue]: after five years, we produce transcript of every word said at the FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] meetings." See video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urkJ2WCQ5R0&feature=player_embedded#
Auerbach said today: "The head of the Federal Reserve bureaucracy should become familiar with its dismal practices. First, consider the Fed’s cover-up of the source of the $6,300 in $100 bills found on the Watergate burglars when they were arrested at approximately 2:30 a.m. on June 17, 1972 after they had broken into the Watergate offices of the Democratic Party. Five days after the break-in, on June 22, 1972, at a board of directors’ meeting of officials at the Philadelphia Fed Bank, it was recorded in the minutes (shown on page 23 of my book) that false or misleading information had been provided to a reporter from the Washington Post about the $6,300. ...
"The second subject brought up by Congressman Ron Paul is the exposure of faulty examinations by the Federal Reserve of a foreign bank in Atlanta, Georgia through which $5.5 billion was sent to Saddam Hussein that U.S. District Judge Ernest Tidwell found to have 'clearly facilitated criminal conduct.'" Auerbach details allegations by Christopher Drogoul, a prosecuted official at the Italian bank in question, regarding the Fed's flawed examination of his bank.
In terms of making information public, Auerbach notes: "The Fed voted in 1995 to destroy the source transcripts of its policy making committee that had been sent to National Archives and Records Administration." Auerbach's recent articles on the Fed include "Stop the Federal Reserve From Shredding Its Records."
Auerbach said today: "The bottom line is that the Fed is a very secretive organization that is largely run by the big banks it is supposed to be regulating. It should be opened up, not given more powers such as the new consumer protection agency."
