2010
GRITtv: Oct. 25, 2010
"What we are seeing is a dagger directed at the heart of our democracy, with this money," says Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation of the ongoing influx of corporate cash on election spending this cycle. She notes that this has been a $5 billion--with a B--election, with $1 billion spent just on the House, and no matter what Karl Rove tries to say, there is nowhere close to parity with spending from left-wing causes. Katrina and Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker join Laura in studio for a discussion of the money flooding the election cycle and to consider ways to counter the corrupting influence of cash on our political system. Is there a way to save the 2010 elections? In 2008, CNN and YouTube paired up to pose citizen questions to presidential candidates through YouTube videos. But, Daniel Teweles of the Personal Democracy Forum notes, the questions were still selected by journalists and presented in a typical debate format.
Email this pageGRITtv: 10 Questions to Fix our Elections
In 2008, CNN and YouTube paired up to pose citizen questions to presidential candidates through YouTube videos. But, Daniel Teweles of the Personal Democracy Forum notes, the questions were still selected by journalists and presented in a typical debate format. This time around, the Personal Democracy Forum has a new project, 10Questions, where citizens can pose questions to candidates in their local races, and the candidates post video responses on the Web for all to see. Daniel joins Laura in studio to talk about the project, and ways that new media technology can improve our elections. They also check in with Dr. Martin Michaels, a physician from Georgia whose question about childhood health was answered by the candidates for governor of Georgia. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: October 21, 2010
"The one thing I couldn't live without in Iraq was my own humanity," says Iraq veteran Ethan McCord, who came home from dropping his children off at school to find a video of himself rescuing an child from a bombed-out van. That was the now-infamous Wikileaks video, and McCord has been collecting his own video and stories from his fellow veterans, speaking out about what he saw at war and what his friends lived through.McCord joins Laura in studio for a discussion of the suppression of more video from WikiLeaks, the supposed end of the war in Iraq, and the way talking about the war helps him to heal."Women's rights are nothing but human rights when women exercise them," notes Ann Jones, but Afghanistan has never been big on women's rights. Still, as highly-touted negotiations continue between Taliban representatives and the Karzai government, where are the women? Can real peace come when it's negotiated without women when, Matthew Hoh notes, the population of the country between the ages of 20 and 45 is four to one women to men?Jones is the author most recently of War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women Speak Out from the Ruins of War, and Hoh was the first American official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war in Afghanistan and now directs the Afghanistan Study Group. They join Laura for a discussion of what real peace in Afghanistan would have to entail.Finally, the election season continues to get ever more ridiculous, and Laura has to ask: who's profiting?
GRITtv: The F Word: Who Profits from Silly Campaign Season?
We need another word for silly season. It's way beyond silly how some are competing in this midterm race. In Illinois in particular, it's not been pretty in the tight fight for Barack Obama's old seat. At three different points in a recent televised debate, Democratic contender Alexi Giannoulias challenged Republican Representative Mark Kirk over his claims that he had been shot at in a plane when he was serving in Iraq. "The question, Congressman, is, why would you not tell the truth? Why would you make all this stuff up?" Giannoulias asked. Watch more at http://grittv.org! Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: Benjamin Jealous: One Nation, Moving Forward
The One Nation rally this past weekend was intended to offer an alternative to anger and hate, to give progressives a way to come together to organize around the issue most pressing to nearly all Americans: the economy and jobs. The idea was the brainchild of Ben Jealous, the youngest leader of the nation's oldest and largest grassroots civil rights organization, the NAACP, along with George Gresham of 1199 SEIU. They don't intend for this to be a one-time rally, either, and Jealous sat down with Laura while they were both in Washington to discuss the rally, strategies for moving forward, the current political climate, and just what happened with Shirley Sherrod.
GRITtv: Oct. 5 2010
Election 2010: it just keeps getting weirder. Now that the primaries are mostly over, a motley crew of Tea Partiers and abstinenceaholics are taking aim at Congress, and some of what they have to say is hilarious--or would be, if these weren't the nominees of one of the two major parties in the U.S., and the other party hadn't managed to alienate a good chunk of its base. Lizz Winstead joins guest host John Fugelsang to look--and laugh--at Jim DeMint, Christine O'Donnell, Meg Whitman, and more as we get closer and closer to voting time. The One Nation rally this past weekend was intended to offer an alternative to anger and hate, to give progressives a way to come together to organize around the issue most pressing to nearly all Americans: the economy and jobs. The idea was the brainchild of Ben Jealous, the youngest leader of the nation's oldest and largest grassroots civil rights organization, the NAACP, along with George Gresham of 1199 SEIU. They don't intend for this to be a one-time rally, either, and Jealous sat down with Laura while they were both in Washington to discuss the rally, strategies for moving forward, the current political climate, and just what happened with Shirley Sherrod.
GRITtv: Oct. 4 2010
"We need a grassroots coalition that's comparable to the Tea Party movement in many respects. It needs to be fairly decentralized, easy for people to join, and it needs to be audacious," says Bill Fletcher, Jr. of the way forward after the success of this past weekend's One Nation rally in Washington, D.C. This rally, he notes, needs to not simply be a nice day out for progressives--it needs to be a turning of the tide, a reversal of course away from anger and toward solidarity.Bill joins guest host Richard Kim of The Nation to discuss the rally this weekend, the media's reaction to it, and what it really means to be audacious.Laura was a cohost for Free Speech TV's coverage of the One Nation march this weekend, and she and Thom Hartmann spoke to two participants there who remember another march on Washington--one in 1963, for civil rights.
GRITtv: Rev. Jesse Jackson: Learning to Live Together
"Forty-seven years later, we are free but not equal," said Rev. Jesse Jackson, from the One Nation rally in Washington, D.C. this weekend. In 1963, of course, Jackson was with Martin Luther King, Jr. marching on Washington, and this year he came to D.C. from Detroit, where the continuing devastation of the economy and communities there. Jackson joined Laura and Thom Hartmann to discuss whether we are one nation or many, the definition of freedom, and religion and economic justice.
GRITtv: John Nichols: Pledge to America
The Republicans like to go back to old playbooks, it seems--this time they're remembering 1994's "Contract with America" with the "Pledge to America." But, John Nichols notes, it's just the same old policies with a fancy new cover. Nichols stopped by the GRITtv studio recently to record this commentary.
GRITtv: Sept. 27 2010
Sarah Palin has declared that the "mama Grizzlies" are taking over the Republican party, and newspapers have seized on the meme of Republican women as if they're an undiscovered species. But is there anything new about this year's crop of conservative female candidates, and is there something the Democrats aren't grabbing, an opportunity missed? Joining us to discuss are two veteran political journalists who've spent years watching right-wing women as well as their progressive counterparts: Rebecca Traister, senior writer at Salon and author of the new book Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women, and Betsy Reed, executive editor at The Nation and co-editor of Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare. When Barack Obama took office as president, many people compared him to the man who ended slavery in the U.S.--Abraham Lincoln. But, historian Eric Foner notes, despite Obama's calls for progressives to hold him accountable, he doesn't seem to actually like what that entails, whereas Lincoln actually appreciated critique. What else could Obama learn from Lincoln? What could we? Eric Foner joins Laura in studio to discuss this as well as his upcoming book, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. The Republicans like to go back to old playbooks, it seems--this time they're remembering 1994's "Contract with America" with the "Pledge to America." But, John Nichols notes, it's just the same old policies with a fancy new cover. Nichols stopped by the GRITtv studio recently to record this commentary.
