Free Speech TV News
Happy New Year From Free Speech TV
Dear Friend of FSTV,
From all of us at the nation's only progressive television network, we wish you and yours a happy and prosperous New Year and one filled with victories and advances for all who believe in social and economic justice. Thanks for viewing and supporting us this past year. We pledge to continue bringing you fearless, informative and educational programming in 2012 - -media for and about the 99%; TV driven by your needs, not by the moneyed interests of the corporate and political elites.
Help us remain independent and innovative throughout the new year by making a secure, tax-deductible contribution today. Just visit our Web site (http://www.freespeech.org/online-specials) and make a contribution you can afford at this time and please spread the word about FSTV to your friends, family and colleagues. Let them know there's a TV network that speaks truth to power, 24x7, each and every day of the year on DIRECTV (Ch 348) and Dish Network (Ch 9415) and online at Freespeech.org.
Peace & Power, Don Rojas, Executive Director, FSTV
Email this pageFSTV Broadcasting at NAACP
The FSTV Newswire team will be traveling to Los Angeles this weekend to bring exclusive coverage and interviews from the 102nd Annual National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Convention.
Coverage of the convention will begin Sunday (July 24) and continue through Wednesday (July 27) on DIRECTV channel 348 and DISH Network channel 9415. FSTV will be broadcasting live the keynote speech by Roslyn Brock on Sunday from 10-11:30 p.m. EST, and the keynote speech by NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST, and will broadcast daily updates.
The NAACP Annual Convention establishes policies and programs of action for the ensuing year. The conference will feature keynote speeches, youth and adult regional programs, legislative sessions, and a job fair. A number of political and civic leaders and celebrities from around the country will also attend.
"The civil rights era held great promise for a more just and equal America," stated NAACP President & CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous. "Though we have made great strides, so many of the same injustices still exist today. As Americans recover from a Great Recession, many people of color are still struggling to avoid a Great Depression. Our convention will bring thousands of NAACP members and activists from across the nation to raise our voice for change and build a powerful grassroots movement. Together, we can realize America's promise for all. We are delighted that Free Speech TV will be joining us in LA to bring extensive coverage of the convention to a nation-wide TV audience of millions."
The NAACP mission is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.
"Free Speech TV is proud to provide expanded coverage and exclusive interviews from the NAACP, the nation's most important and diverse gathering for the advancement of civil rights. Free Speech TV's very mission is to utilize the power of media to inspire viewers to become civically engaged to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable society. As such, we are honored to expand our mission by providing a national platform for the NAACP and their participants." said FSTV Executive Director Don Rojas.
The television and online broadcast will include interviews with special guests, politicians and analysts, as well as exclusive Newswire reports. For more on the convention, visit the NAACP website.
A Courageous, Progressive, People's Budget
"To whom much is given, much is required." As he stood with the Congressional Progressive Caucus to present the People's Budget yesterday, Democratic Minority Whip Hank Johnson echoed the words of John F. Kennedy as he compared the caucus's budget to Rep. Paul Ryan's budget. Kennedy borrowed those words from the Bible, Luke 12:48: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required. The People's Budget stands in stark contrast to conservative budget proposals that turn the Kennedy/Luke quote on its head: "To whom much is given, not much is required.
Caucus members underscored this contrast, with particular emphasis on the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. The People's Budget allows the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire at the end of 2012, but extends marriage relief, credits, and incentives for children, families and education.
It also rescinds the upper-income tax cuts in the December 2010 tax "deal," and incorporates the higher tax rates on millionaires from Rep. Jan Schakowsky's Fairness in Taxation Act, and the progressive estate tax from the Responsible Estate Tax Act consponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders, Tom Harkin, and Sheldon Whitehouse.
Ryan's budget requires even less of those "to whom much is given." It cuts the top tax rate from 35% to 25% - the lowest since 1931, back to a level not seen since the "good old days" before Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And, Media Matters' Jamison Foser pointed out, Ryan wants to cut taxes for corporations which are making huge profits, and some of which aren't even paying taxes.
As a result, under Ryan's budget, the government would collect $4 trillion less in revenues over ten years. So, Ryan pays for those tax cuts by passing the costs on to working- and middle-class Americans.,/P.
The People's Budget increases revenue by $3.9 trillion, cuts primary spending by $869 brillion, cuts total spending by $1.7 trillion, and reduces the deficit by $5.6 trillion. It strengthens Social Security by lifting the cap on taxable earnings. (Something candidate Obama campaigned on.) As an added bonus, it includes something we haven't seen since 2001 - a budget surplus, this time to the tune of $30.7 billion by 2021.
No wonder the Economic Policy Institute, which analyzed and scored the People's Budget, called it "a sound alternative to Ryan's plan."
The People's Budget is a long overdue correction of the conservative policies that got us into this mess. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi explains:
The last ten years or so have seen the government send massive amounts of money to people in the top tax brackets, mainly through two methods: huge tax cuts, and financial bailouts. The government has spent trillions of our national treasure bailing out Wall Street, which has resulted directly in enormous, record profit numbers - nearly $100 billion in the last three years (and that doesn't even count the tens of billions more in inflated compensation and bonuses that came more or less directly from government aid). Add to that the $700 billion or so the Obama tax cuts added to the national debt over the next two years, and we're looking at a trillion dollars of lost revenue in just a few years.
You push a policy like that in the middle of a shaky economy, of course we're going to have debt problems. But the issue is being presented as if the debt comes entirely from growth in entitlement spending. It's bad enough that middle-class taxpayers have been forced in the last few years to subsidize the vacations and beach houses of the idiots who caused the financial crisis, and it's doubly insulting that they're now being blamed for the budget mess.
Economist Jeffrey Sachs said of the People's Budget, "This is the only budget that reflects what the American people really want," and have said we want in survey after survey.
The fourth position is the public's position. The Republicans often say that they want Congress to respect the voice of the people. The voice of the people is crystal clear. In one opinion survey after the next, the public says that the rich and the corporations should pay more taxes. The public says that we should tamp down runaway health care costs through a public option, one that would introduce competition to drive down bloated private health insurance costs. The public says that we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and reduce Pentagon spending. (Just yesterday, Defense Secretary Gates let loose the predictable Pentagon canard that we should stay in Iraq if the Iraqi government asks for it. Better yet, we should respond to what the American people are asking for: to bring our troops home).
The fact is that the People's Budget is the public's position. That's why it is truly a centrist initiative, at the broad center of the U.S. political spectrum. Ryan reflects the wishes of the rich and the far right. Obama's position reflects the muddle of a White House that wavers between its true values and the demands of the wealthy campaign contributors and lobbyists that Obama courts for his re-election. Many Democrats in Congress have also gone along with the falsehood that deficit cutting means slashing spending on the poor and on civilian discretionary programs, rather than raising taxes on the rich, cutting military spending, and taking on the over-priced private health insurance industry. Only the People's Budget speaks to the broad needs and values of the American people.
Paul Ryan has been called "courageous" by some in the media, for taking the easy way out by trying to balance the budget on the back of the elderly, the disabled, children, working- and middle-class Americans, and the poor. This is courage?
Standing together, on the side of working- and middle-class Americans are demonstrating what John Kennedy meant by "To whom much is given, much is required"; a meaning spelled out in Kennedy's "Shining City Upon a Hill" speech.
For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us - recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state - our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:
First, were we truly men of courage - with the courage to stand up to one's enemies - and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one's associates - the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed?
Secondly, were we truly men of judgment - with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past - of our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others - with enough wisdom to know that we did not know, and enough candor to admit it?
Third, were we truly men of integrity - men who never ran out on either the principles in which they believed or the people who believed in them - men who believed in us - men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?
Finally, were we truly men of dedication - with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest.
Courage - judgment - integrity - dedication - these are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State - the qualities which this state has consistently sent to this chamber on Beacon Hill here in Boston and to Capitol Hill back in Washington.
Much is given to our elected representatives - power, trust, and responsibility. What is required, and what members of the Progressive Caucus demonstrate, is courage; real courage.
Hillary Clinton says U.S. not pushing for ouster of Egyptian President Mubarak
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes clear in TV interviews Sunday that the United States is not demanding that President Hosni Mubarak step down. She also backs away from earlier threats to pull Egypt's billions of dollars in aid.
Reporting from Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday called for Egypt to move toward "real democracy" but also made clear that the United States was not demanding that embattled President Hosni Mubarak step down in the face of continuing demonstrations.
In a series of television interviews, Clinton also eased slightly off the administration's threats on Friday to yank Egypt's billions in aid, saying such a step was not now under discussion.
Clinton spoke warmly of the Egyptian military as a "respected institution" and advised it to help move the country from its current unrest to an "orderly transition."
"We are urging the Mubarak government, which is still in power; we are urging the military, which is a very respected institution, to do what is necessary to facilitate that kind of orderly transition."
She spoke to NBC's "Meet the Press," "Fox News Sunday," ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation," and CNN's "State of the Union."
U.S. officials are looking for what they are calling "managed change" -- a gradual transition to elections that lead the way to a greater sharing of power and economic reforms. With the Iranian revolution of 1979 in mind, they fear an abrupt transition that would lead to turmoil and a possible seizure of power by what they feel is the wrong kind of leadership.
Egypt has a powerful military that has kept the ruling party in place for more than 30 years. Its largest and best-organized opposition group is the banned Muslim Brotherhood. In this environment, other opposition groups have not been able to develop, and that absence could make a democratic transition difficult.
Although the United States has been prodding Mubarak for days to do more to move toward reform, it has avoided becoming too specific out of a desire to allow Mubarak some running room.
Clinton avoided offering any opinion on Mubarak's choice to appoint a new vice president, prime minister and Cabinet on Saturday. She sought to avoid any specific comment on Mubarak and his fate in the job.
Asked if the administration was backing away from the 82-year-old leader, she said: "We don't want to send any message about backing forward or backing away."
Clinton said the military "appears to be showing restraint" in its handling of demonstrations so far. But she said the situation remained "volatile and complex."
"We want to see an orderly transition so that no one fills a void -- that there not be a void," she said.
She said the government needed to open a political conversation with Egyptians who had "legitimate grievances."
"There are many steps that can be taken by reaching out to those who have advocated a peaceful orderly transition," she said.
Clinton made clear that the United States believes the political evolution in Egypt will take time.
The administration's support for the opposition in Egypt and other Arab countries has been a source of controversy for two years, with some critics saying the administration has not pushed Arab governments hard enough for change.
But the administration's handling of the Egyptian crisis won general support on Sunday from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
He told Fox that the administration had "handled this tense situation pretty well."
Some European governments have been speaking out with a message similar to that of the administration. William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said in a Twitter message Sunday that the Egyptian government should open a "clear path toward an open society based on democratic values."
Free Speech TV Online Special!!
Yes, for a limited time, Free Speech TV is offering our brand-new logo T-shirt for just a $50 donation to FSTV. This is a great way to show your support of independent media. Be the first ones on your block or in your town to sport Free Speech TV T-shirts. Start a conversation by just wearing it. Read Thom Hartmann's piece about the importance of independent media here.
Thanks to our partners at Mother Jones magazine, we have some annual subscriptions to that great magazine. Give $25 to FSTV and get a one-year subscription to a fearless independent magazine.
More information on becoming a monthly donor here. And thanks for your support in keeping Free Speech TV alive and well.
Switch to Full-Screen for Online Videos
I'm pleased to report that the full-screen toggle switch on our online Blip video player is now functional and working so that you can now watch any videos in our On-Demand section online in full-screen mode.
Toggle to full screen by clicking on the little screen over to the right below each video. If you want to toggle back to the smaller screen, use the Esc key.
You can also send a video you're watching to others by using the "Connect" icon and turn the audio up or down with by using the audio toggle between the Connect and Full-Screen icons. Thanks to all viewers who brought this to our attention.
CALL TO ACTION: Boycott Black Friday and Join FSTV!
Why do they call it Black Friday? I don't know about you, but the whole concept creeps me out. In what appears to be an attempt to bleed all meaning out of the holiday season, we are asked to spend our hard-earned money for gifts that we often don't care about - just to take part in what is becoming more and more an exercise in meaninglessness. Businesses might wind up in the black, but consumers wind up in the red.
Black Friday is supposed to indicate the beginning of the holiday buying season, but this year I saw Christmas items for sale as quickly as the Halloween stuff could be pushed aside. Some national chains are opening at 3 a.m. on Friday to induce buying fever, while others actually open late Thanksgiving night. The "holiday season" has become nothing more than a two-month spending marathon, and for what? Should this really be our motivation for holiday gift giving?
That's why Free Speech TV came up with a solution to end this holiday frenzy. If you're tired of the craziness, our end-of-year membership drive is designed to help you a) find valuable gifts that your friends will actually appreciate b) allow to do your shopping from home, saving gas and wear-and-tear on your vehicle and c) strike a blow against the corporations who have a stranglehold on the American buying public. At the same time, you will be supporting Free Speech TV, which doesn't take ANY money from corporations or the government. We are beholden only to you, our members and viewers.
There is a large selection of gifts to fit any budget: Free Speech TV t-shirts, Democracy Now! apparel, books, tote bags, caps, hoodies and DVDs, documentaries that you will only find on our station, including "Dirt," "Fuel" and interviews with historians Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn, books like David Kirby's "Animal Factory" and others by Thom Hartmann, Gore Vidal, Molly Ivins and Amy Goodman, subscriptions to Mother Jones magazine and other fabulous gifts that can be used as tools to help promote issues and causes you believe in.
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to call and join Free Speech TV or already renewed their memberships. It's a real privilege to be able to connect with our members, talk about your concerns and passions and what we're doing here to make the station better.
But at the halfway point of our drive, we're behind our goals. I have talked with many of you who watch "Democracy Now!," "GRITtv" or "The Thom Hartmann Show" every day. If you're one of those people, I ask you now to step up and make a donation that you feel comfortable with so we can keep those programs and others coming to you. Consider a monthly membership: Just five dollars a month, which translates to $60 a year or 17 cents a day, will help us plan for the future. We can't do it without you!
Many premiums can be shipped in time for holiday delivery, but you need to become a member by Dec. 5. Beat the lines, miss the congestion, buy meaningful gifts and keep your sanity by calling FSTV at 877-378-8669 or at the support page on the website. Thanks for your support.
Avoid Holiday Madness and Support Free Speech TV
Consider this: In 2009 corporations raked in $10.6 billion on Black Friday alone. That is a staggering figure, and we are fast approaching that day and that season again. Only this time FSTV has the solution: Avoid the December crush by ordering your holiday gifts for family and friends during Free Speech TV's End-of-Year Membership Drive beginning Monday through December 5, and we'll send them out the day you place your order.
We at Free Speech TV, which doesn't have corporate or government sponsors to tell us what to do, have chosen some inspirational documentaries and films especially for this drive, including "Dying to Have Known," (a different view of cancer remedies) "The Rich Have Their Own Photographers" (the fascinating life of America's premiere documentary photographer Milton Rogovin) and "Strange Culture" (a deep look at artist and suspected terrorist Steve Kurtz).
And along with our usual assortment of films, books and other activist tools, we also have brand-new FSTV merchandise (caps, bumper stickers, long- and short-sleeved T-shirts, posters, post cards and other stuff to share with others) as well as special gift packages hand-picked by FSTV staff.
We have been listening to our viewers and supporters and expanded our reach and commitment in 2010. FSTV was the only media outlet to cover the United States Social Forum in June and the One Nation March in Washington, D.C., Oct. 2. For the first time, FSTV offered full election-night coverage without the benefit of corporate backing on television and the Internet. Watch for FSTV to cover more of these kinds of events in 2011, but always remember that it has been your membership and support that made all this coverage possible.
Give the gift of independent media and boycott the corporate stranglehold on the holiday season in one fell swoop. We're making it really easy to buy gifts for your most special friends, and we'll get them ready for delivery the same day you order. Can you afford not to take advantage of this unique holiday deal?
For the first time in the network's history, our membership drive will be broadcast on the mainstream dial on DIRECTV channel 348, DISH Network channel 9415, part-time on selected cable affiliates and at http://freespeech.org.
Join Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, GRITTV's Laura Flanders, talk-shows hosts Thom Hartmann and Marc Steiner and the FSTV staff for Free Speech TV's Membership Drive. Become a member or renew your commitment to corporate-free media this holiday season.
Viewers, Get Involved on Election Night
As you might or might not already know, Free Speech TV will be providing six hours of coverage of the Midterm Elections Tuesday night beginning at 6 p.m. ET. Our coverage will include anchors in N.Y., Washington, D.C. and Denver, with results and commentary by a host of progressive voices.
At this historic juncture, it's time for progressives to stand out amidst the negative campaigns, ads and publicity and work together to offer an alternative to media as usual.
If you have a weblog, we urge you to embed our Livestream player and let your readers have the chance to watch progressive coverage of this election. The embed codes for differently sized players are included at the end of this email. Contact Bonnie Gross (bonnie@freespeech.org) if you have questions about using the embed codes.
We encourage our viewers to become involved during the broadcast itself through social media and networks. If you have a comment about the elections, LIKE our FB page and post your comment on the FSTV Wall. If you want to ask a question, FB users can post those on the Wall, too.
For Twitter users, the Free Speech TV page is here. If you want to comment, use the hashtag #FSvote; if you want to ask a question, use #FSTVQ. Questions will be read and answered on-air throughout the night.
If you're a blogger and posting Tuesday night, also feel free to send me your posts at this email address, and I'll post them (with proper attribution) on the FSTV blog to get a wider variety of comments and opinions.
This is an incredible opportunity to show off what progressive media and interested viewers can bring to the table during this important election, and we encourage everybody to interact during this historic night. And thanks for your great support for independent media. We couldn't do it without you.
Here are the embed codes for four differently sized players:
XXL - 800x600
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XL - 640x385
<object width="640" height="385" id="lsplayer" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-
L - 560x340
<object width="560" height="340" id="lsplayer" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-
M - 480x295
<object width="480" height="295" id="lsplayer" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-
S - 300x193
<object width="300" height="193" id="lsplayer" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-
We're Working on the Online Schedule
We are aware that the online schedule is not rendering new programs. Out technical team is working diligently to correct the problem and insure it doesn't happen again.
Thanks, everybody, for your patience with our technical difficulties. Leland/FSTV Web Editor
