al franken

Progressives cheered when it was announced Wednesday that Glenn Beck would be "transitioning" off his Fox News show. Beck's not gone for good, of course, but his daily screeds against the likes of Van Jones and Frances Fox Piven will be somewhat more limited -- perhaps to radio. That news aside, though, it's been a rough year in media. NPR and PBS are under attack, newspapers and magazines are still struggling to make ends meet, and with a new war, hundreds of anti-woman, anti-union, anti-immigrant bills popping up around the country, the progressive independent media is stretched thin as a pancake. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"It seems that when you flip the switch too late you actually promote the revolutions in your country. What would've happened if Egypt hadn't flipped the switch? If people are home blogging their discontent they're a lot more controllable, a lot less dangerous," says Doug Rushkoff, author of Program or Be Programmed, of the role of the Internet in the recent revolutions. Doug joins us via Skype to discuss corporate control over our communications, the fight for Net Neutrality, the AT&T and T-Mobile merger, the attempts to defund NPR, and more. Bradley Manning, the accused leaker of many of the documents posted on the website WikiLeaks, remains in jail under increasingly harsh conditions. This weekend, protesters, including regular GRITtv guest Col. Ann Wright and Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, were arrested at Quantico Marine Corps base, rallying in support and demanding better treatment for Manning. This Saturday, protests are planned in the UK, the US, and Canada against corporate tax avoiders and government austerity cuts. The UK Uncut movement has been going strong, occupying retail outlets as diverse as Vodafone and TopShop, and its solidarity movement in the US is just getting started. Using street theater and organizing largely on the web, the direct action movements aim to make tax dodging a whole lot less profitable for big banks like Bank of America and corporations like Verizon and FedEx. Allison Kilkenny has been covering the US Uncut movement for The Nation, and she joins us along with J.A. Myerson, a "tax avoidance consultant", to discuss the new resistance to paying for corporate welfare. Finally, Republicans have declared war on Elizabeth Warren. But what will it take to get Warren some real power, enough to really put some fear into banksters and their allies in Congress? Distributed by Tubemogul.

After the passage of the health care bill, windows shattered in the offices of Congress members across the country, and Congressmen like Bart Stupak received death threats. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin and others encouraged opponents of the bill to "reload" and "take aim" at health care supporters. Where is the violent rhetoric headed? We ask David Neiwert, author of The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, what it all means, and why we should take it seriously. Last weekend's 200,000-person-strong march on Washington for justice on immigration was spared from too much violence and anger because the press was largely focused on health care reform. But as that bill was signed into law Monday, immigration will again find itself at the top of the list for political action--and the passions that it inspires are certain to flare. Joining us to talk about whether the Obama administration and this Congress will have the will, vision, and political capital to get anything done on immigration--and whether the legislation being considered at the moment will do more harm than good--are Seth Freed Wessler of the Applied Research Center and ColorLines, and Roberto Lovato of New America Media. Finally, Laura has some thoughts about justice, maybe, for Jamie Leigh Jones.

This is what must make it hard for people working inside the Obama administration. No sooner does the White House start talking up something good, than it does something bad. Take contracting. As reported here on GRITtv, the Obama's administration's been talking up "High Road Contracting." That's the using of the power of the government's $500 billion purse to reward companies that offer better wages and benefits and disqualify from federal contracts those that violate labor and environmental law. Sounds good right? The debate was just heating up when the second shoe dropped. Listen to the rest of Laura Flanders' opinion on GRITtv.