david corn

Provisions of the much-disputed health care bill go into effect today, just as the Republicans unveil their new "Pledge to America," which includes a promise to repeal the law. But as the most popular bits are the ones that go into effect now, and, David Corn notes, health insurance companies aren't getting any more popular. Will allying themselves with the big insurers help Republicans? Or will people realize that they like the regulations just as Republicans try to pull them back?David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine, joins us via Skype to discuss the Pledge, the health care regulations, and suggest some strategy for Democrats for the midterms. "I'm not a feudal, I'm a writer," says Fatima Bhutto, but nevertheless she is best known as the niece of assassinated Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and as a prominent critic of her aunt's regime. Bhutto is a poet and a journalist, and her new memoir from Nation Books, Songs of Blood and Sword, looks into the long history of the Bhutto dynasty, from the origin of the Pakistani state to the floods that have devastated the country this summer--and the U.S. drone strikes that continue to kill daily.Bhutto joins Laura in studio for a special discussion of her book, her family's past, her relationship to Pakistani politics--and to the U.S.Finally, Charles Bowden and Molly Molloy both call the war on drugs a war on the poor. With U.S. politicians obsessed with "border security," Laura has some thoughts on what it all means.

How many times is the Obama administration going to roll over for Glenn Beck? That's the question once again, this time as Shirley Sherrod, a Department of Agriculture official, is forced out of her job following the airing of a selectively-edited video of her speech at an NAACP banquet in March. The video, cut to make it appear as if the African-American Sherrod was a “reverse racist,” has since been released in full, clearing Sherrod.

What's in a constitutional interpretation? As Thomas Jefferson once wrote to James Madison, "The principle is that the earth belongs to the living, and not the dead. Over the centuries, many Supreme Court Justices have either upheld or lost track of this, on one hand interpreting the Constitution towards a more perfect union, on the other passively calling the "balls and strikes" in accordance with the extant Constitution. On Monday, Elena Kagan's Senate confirmation hearings began. What will she bring? Humor? Too much judicial Twilight talk? Mother Jones correspondent David Corn has followed her hearings in Washington DC this past week and reports his observations to us via Skype. Social media is changing the way our public discourse is conducted, says Deanna Zandt, GRITtv's very own TechGrrl and now the author of a book about social media, Share This! By changing the way we interact with media (instead of passively consuming it), social technologies from Twitter to Facebook are injecting our personal lives and values into the public space and forcing the doors wide open for potential change. According to Mashable.com, it's Social Media Day today, June 30, and so who better to join us in studio than Deanna Zandt, along with author, radio host, and social media expert Farai Chideya. They discuss participatory media, privacy concerns, the iPad, Net Neutrality and more. Since it's social media day out there in the world and here at GRITtv, we're reminding you that without Net Neutrality, the promise of a strong, free, and open Internet for all, there'll be no social media sharing for any of us. We bring you this video from our friends at Save the Internet/Free Press explaining just why Net Neutrality matters. Top economics writers are sending some scary signals this week. Just as June unemployment numbers are due, Paul Krugman's declaring that we could be headed for a third Depression, and David Leonhardt, also writing in the New York Times quotes source after source saying "The world's rich countries are now conducting a dangerous experiment." Laura has some thoughts.

On Tuesday, the Obama White House released its Nuclear Posture Review, a policy statement that sets guidelines for nuclear weapons policy for the next five to ten years. Mother Jones' David Corn notes that arms control advocates were "mildly impressed" with the policy, which is being characterized as a middle course. Corn joins Laura to talk about Obama and nukes, and also to break down the latest court decision on Net Neutrality--a three-judge panel tossed out an FCC order against Comcast, preventing it from offering different content at different speeds. Monday's revelation of a videotape of U.S. soldiers shooting unarmed Iraqi civilians is still reverberating around the country. The Wikileaks video is raising questions about procedure, the rules of engagement, and even freedom of speech and of the press. Most importantly, though, people seem to be asking whether this is an aberration in behavior, a few soldiers overreacting or misbehaving, or the normal procedure for action in Iraq. Joining us to discuss are Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films, who was in Iraq and visited the scene of the shootings just the day after they happened, and senior fellow at Peace Action, Raed Jarrar. We learned all too late about the disaster brewing in domestic real estate that helped destroy our economy the first time around. Now, the city is dotted with new commercial buildings standing empty, no one can afford to rent them. GRITtv took a trip around the city to look into the reasons why we're building huge towers--and how we can get better at matching the allocation of resources with need. Finally, Laura has some words for politicians who get money from anti-union, anti-safety mine companies.