Posts by Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders is the host of GRITtv and the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians.

Live from Main Street: Protecting the Vote
Posted by Laura Flanders on October 1, 2008 at 2:01 AM.

Editor's note: Part one of 'Live from Main Street's virtual townhall on voting rights in Ohio is posted on the right. Part two can be found at the end of this article.

Voter registration deadlines are just over a week away in many states. Polls open in just over a month. In an election that could well be decided by new voters, voter registration efforts are in overdrive. But signing people up might be the easy part: after that, there's voting. As the last two elections have shown, just showing up at the polls isn't a guarantee of a smooth ride to the ballot box.

In 2000 and 2004, all across the country, thousands of voters were removed from the rolls, without their knowledge, in official purges of voter lists. On Election Day in 2004, boxes of registrations remained unprocessed in at least two cities we know about -- Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. On the radio that election night, I received calls from Columbus voters who had stood for hours in line because of a shortage of voting machines in the inner city, even as, in nearby wealthy suburbs, voters were able to cast their votes in a matter of minutes. As one caller put it, "Jim Crow isn't dead."

Election protection and voting rights should be central to any conversation about the '08 vote. But a lot of tough questions are getting lost in horse-race coverage. And many voters are wondering -- again -- if their vote will be counted. In contrast to most advanced democracies, the right to vote isn't conveyed automatically with citizenship or coming of age in the United States. Voters have to prove themselves and there are no end to the challenges, from felon disenfranchisement laws to monolingual ballots and a myriad of ever-changing rules which differ from election to election and district to district. Come voting day, voters rely on minimally-trained poll-workers overseeing a myriad of voting systems. Disturbing doubts remain about the security of electronic voting and the privately-owned technology many districts rely on to tally votes.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Watch Live: Laura Flanders Interviews Steven Rosenfeld About Protecting the Vote
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on October 1, 2008 at 1:48 AM.

Streaming live on Oct 1, 2008: Noon EST, 9 am PST

GRIT TV's Laura Flanders interviews AlterNet Democracy & Elections reporter Steven Rosenfeld about election protection, voter registration efforts and the campaign groundwar at the grassroots.

Video below:

Live from Main Street Ohio: Will Your Vote Count?
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on September 30, 2008 at 1:55 PM.

Editor's note: This is part one of a two part series. Watch for the second half of this virtual Town Hall, along with an op-ed by Laura Flanders, here tomorrow.

Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on September 19, 2008 at 3:47 AM.

Now that we've had a few weeks to settle, a look back at Labor Day in the Twin Cities. Labor Day was of course also Day One of the Republican National Convention. Video was released today of an apparent mass arrest of utterly peaceful concert goers at the SEIU Labor Day concert.

My personal favorite moment in the tape is an off-camera exchange. Police in riot gear have surrounded loungers in a waterfront park. They announce, "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Under Arrest" and you hear one young woman say incredulously "Are you serious?"

Yep, I'm afraid they are.

Here's the press release that came with the video, from the Glass Bead Collective:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

GRITtv: Vermont Candidate for Atty General to Prosecute Bush for Murder
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on September 17, 2008 at 10:53 AM.

Yesterday on GRITtv Vincent Bugliosi announced that a candidate for Attorney General somewhere in the United States would, if elected, take up the prosecution of George W. Bush for murder. Well, that candidate is Charlotte Dennett, a long time investigative journalist and Progressive Party candidate for Attorney General in Vermont. She will appear at an event with Bugliosi on Thursday, September 18 at Burlington City Hall to announce their intention to launch criminal proceedings against Bush if Dennett is elected to office.

According to Dennett, "When I read Mr. Bugliosi’s meticulously-argued case it struck a chord with me as a Vermonter and an American citizen. Tragically, our state has the highest per capita loss of soldiers. 36 towns have voted to impeach President Bush. We Vermonters fiercely cherish our democracy and our country's Constitution. We're up for this fight."

Watch the full interview at GRITtv.org.

Watch Live: Laura Flanders Interviews Liliana Segura about Death Row Inmate Troy Davis
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on September 17, 2008 at 3:00 AM.

Streaming live on September 17, 2008: Noon EST, 9 am PST

GRIT TV's Laura Flanders interviews AlterNet Rights & Liberties Editor Liliana Segura about the case of Troy Davis, a death row inmate in Georgia who faces execution next week. Go here to learn more about Davis or read Michelle Garcia's article on AlterNet, "Troy Davis to Die Next Week: Will Georgia Execute an Innocent Man?"

Video below:

GRITtv: Who Will be Obama's Pee Wee Reese?
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on August 12, 2008 at 8:12 AM.

If Barack Obama is the Jackie Robinson of American politics who will be Pee Wee Reese? In this clip, Steve Cobble and Faye Wattleton discuss McCain's recent political attack ads and why white liberals must do more in their defense of Barack Obama.

More at GRITtv with Laura Flanders.

Laura Flanders Presents 'Bomb It: Global Graffiti and the Battle for Public Space'
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on August 6, 2008 at 9:02 AM.

It is harder and harder to find public space free of advertising or corporate ownership. Go to an art gallery or museum a movie theater or even your public school and you'll find the familiar logos that have come to define so much of who we are. There are ads everywhere. We've been branded.

But public space is always being contested. In the documentary Bomb It, filmmaker Jon Reiss follows artists on five continents as they battle for control over the urban visual landscape. Can corporate space be reclaimed? And who gets to determine what we look at today? See "the making of" Bomb It on the flip side.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Laura Flanders: Vanity Fair's Retort to the New Yorker's Obama Cover Misses the Mark
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 24, 2008 at 3:02 PM.

Vanity Fair has released a cartoon cover online in response to the New Yorker's swipe at the media coverage of the Obamas. The fake Vanity Fair cover shows John McCain, in a walker with a bandaged head and Cindy with a bundle of pills giving her hubby a fist-jab. A portrait of George W. Bush hangs over the mantle-piece; the Constitution is burning in the grate.

Some are finding it funny. I'd say not so much. Worse, it's all wrong. If Vanity Fair's cartoonist wanted to flip the New Yorker cover on the GOP, they'd have to portray the media's lies about the candidate. Not the true stuff.

Sure, she's no drug addict, but the candidate's wife has been forced to admit that she was once addicted to prescription drugs. She even stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief outfit. And while McCain doesn't use a walker, it's not as if the media misrepresent his age. Those aren't the media's wrongs where the McCains are concerned. It's not her looks, it's her wealth themedia understate, and it's not his physique, it's his politics.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Dark Side: Laura Flanders Talks Torture on GRITtv
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 22, 2008 at 7:48 AM.

On GRITtv, Jane Mayer and Michael Ratner look at John Ashcroft's recent testimony before congress and whether the architects of the war on terror have anything to fear. Will they be held accountable for their policies? The torture debates continue.

More at GRITtv.

Obama Needs to Change His Afghanistan Policy
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 21, 2008 at 5:10 PM.

Clash, spar, duel, compete … Read the headlines and you’d think the two candidates for President had dueling Afghanistan policies. Sadly not.

Here's the difference: Republican John McCain says that in his view, the troop escalation worked so well in Iraq, that we need another like it in Afghanistan.

Democrat Barack Obama, meanwhile, opposed the so called surge, but says the problem was that military resources that were needed in Afghanistan were misdirected to Iraq.

Beneath the noise and bickering, the sameness is apparent. Both men want to send more troops to Afghanistan. Obama has proposed sending two more combat brigades -- about 7,000 troops -- almost immediately upon gaining office. McCain is also advocating sending more troops.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

GRITtv: Capitalism in Crisis
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 17, 2008 at 8:36 AM.

There's an economic crisis but is capitalism itself in crisis? A roundtable on global capitalism with Naomi Klein, Jeff Madrick, and Bhairavi Desai. In this clip our guests respond to Bush's comment that it's the US consumer who can save the economy.

Check out GRITtv.

That Ain't No Way to Win a Woman...
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 3, 2008 at 1:22 PM.

The rush is on to woo women voters and the politicians and the pundits think they know the trick. Everybody from DNC chair Howard Dean to conservative pundit William Kristol is talking about sexism and why it matters, but women voters aren't stupid. If there was more than politics to all this new found-feminism we'd see policies on the table.

"I've got whip-lash" Lisa Witter, COO of Fenton Communications told GRITtv July 1. "In less than a week, the national discussion of women's leadership changed from the merits of a female president to the potential first lady's dress." Witter, who is co-author with Lisa Chen of The She Spot, told GRITtv that women voters aren't turned on by the makeover of Michelle Obama into nicey-nicey wife. "She's liked because she's strong." What's next? The cookie-baking contest?

What women want is more on policy and not just reproductive policy said Mia Herndon Director of Programs at Third Wave: "I'd like to hear more about urban issues, housing, transport, childcare." The war is a women's issue: women were disproportionately against the deployment, and women will be the major caretakers for injured and sick vets.

"I want them to talk about everything," said Rebecca Traister, staff writer at Salon.com. "Everything we are mentioning from foreign policy, domestic policy and also education, pay equity, healthcare, and reproductive rights."

Reproduction's not the only women's issue, the panel agreed, but if a politician believes abortion should be safe, legal, and funded they should come out and say it. Women are half the population (they're not a special interest) and, as Traister says, "it's fundamental...basic human rights."

"Democrats who assume the female vote is a sure thing should think again," Witter warned. Before they pander for one more female voter, campaigners would do well to listen and learn. Also, why the US needs a motherhood movement.

Here on GRITtv. Take a look.

GRITtv airs Mon-Thurs, at 8 pm & 1 am ET, on Free Speech TV (Dish Network ch. 9415) and at www.firedoglake.com.

Freezing Solar Energy Projects on Public Land
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on July 2, 2008 at 11:00 AM.

So much for the Government’s much touted commitment to alternative energy…

The New York Times reports the Bush administration has placed a nearly two year moratorium on the construction of new solar energy projects on public land. While the amount of oil drilling and gas drilling on public land has reached a new high -- the President approved over 7,000 new licenses last year alone --- the Bureau of Land Management is saying it needs until the spring of 2010 to study the environmental impact solar projects might have on land in Arizona, Nevada, California and other western states.

Meanwhile the Defense Department is resisting orders to clean up Fort Meade, and two other military bases where dumped chemicals pose an imminent threat to the public health. The Pentagon doesn't want to follow the law requiring them to clean up. And guess what, the EPA is letting them get away with it.

So how about it -- do you feel Defended? Protected, Managed? I say it's time for some departmental renaming: What do you call a Defense Department that makes you sicker, an Environmental Protection Agency that won't, and a Bureau of Land Management that seems to be more about managing popular expectations about energy resources than managing public land?

You can post your suggestions here in the comments section.

Shelling Out For Shell
Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake on June 20, 2008 at 7:14 AM.

Free trade ... Free oil contracts...There it is again, that cute word "free."

Of 46 international oil companies, including firms from China, India and Russia that had their eye on the first major oil deals in post-Saddam Iraq, guess who got the gig? Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Total and BP!

The western giants got the first-of-a-kind no-bid contracts to service Iraq's biggest fields NOT because the US invaded Iraq for oil. Oh NO. Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Total et al, got the first-of-a-kind, no-bid deals because, (according to the Iraqi Oil Ministry) of the years of “free" consultations those companies have been giving to the ministry. The Ministry also cited a certain “comfort level" in their joint operations. That’s the ministry’s word.

So how's your comfort level? The companies have been advising "without charge" thanks to you. They get to give their consults away because we the taxpayers have been picking up the tab. We've paid for the imperial influence peddlers, which is to say -- the US military. We've paid the Pentagon -- and the private mercenaries who keep the Green Zone "comfortable" for Big Oil and the Ministry. We the tax-payers have been shelling out for Shell: to the tune of over $ 750 million a day.

And all that "free consulting" costs blood too: the blood of well over a million men and women and children and the health of a nation's water and soil.

It's not for naught. The companies are blissed out. Iraqi oil production is expected to go to 3 million barrels soon and 6 million barrels later. Imagine the revenues at today's $140 per barrel. It'll be great for profits. And don't forget: profit's just another word for money someone didn't have to pay for.

So take pride in the oil companies, who you helped offer so much, so comfortably, for "free." But don't expect a piece of the profit. Expecting back would be disturbing the comforts of the cronies of big oil. Besides, the companies are counting on you not thinking about it too much. Free sounds great. Don't let the facts mess with your comfort levels.