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Amy Goodman on MSNBC's Up with Chris Hayes 2/5 at 8-10 am EST
Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman will appear on MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes on Sunday, February 5th from 8 -10am EST .
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"Romney’s 1 Percent Nation Under God." By Amy Goodman
By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan
Although Mitt Romney has yet to win a majority in a Republican primary, he won big in Florida. After he and the pro-Romney super PACs flooded the airwaves with millions of dollars’ worth of ads in a state where nearly half the homeowners are underwater, he talked about whom he wants to represent. “We will hear from the Democrat Party the plight of the poor, and there’s no question, it’s not good being poor,” he told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien. “You could choose where to focus, you could focus on the rich, that’s not my focus. You could focus on the very poor, that’s not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans.” Of the very rich, Romney assures us, “They’re doing just fine.” With an estimated personal wealth of $250 million, Romney should know.
Romney’s campaign itself is well-financed, but his success to date, especially against his current main rival, Newt Gingrich, is driven by massive cash infusions to a so-called super PAC , the new breed of political action committee that can take unlimited funds from individuals and corporations. Super PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating their activities with a candidate’s campaign. Federal Election Commission filings made public Jan. 31 reveal that the principal super PAC supporting Romney, Restore Our Future, raised close to $18 million in the second half of 2011, from just 199 donors. Among his supporters are Alice Walton, who, although listed in the report as a “rancher,” is better known as an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune, and the famously caustic venture capitalist and billionaire Samuel Zell, the man credited with driving the Tribune media company into bankruptcy. William Koch, the third of the famous Koch brothers, also gave.
Juxtapose those 199 with the number of people living in poverty in the United States. According to the most recent figures available from the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million people lived in poverty in 2010, 15.1 percent of the population, the largest number in the 52 years the poverty estimates have been published. 2010 marked the fourth consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty.
Click to read the rest of this column at Truthdig.org.
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Watch Democracy Now! Intv. with Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón, Who Probed War Crimes, Now on Trial Himself
Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón is known for ordering the arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and seeking to indict members of the Bush administration for their role in torturing prisoners. Now Garzón himself is facing a trial in Madrid, after right-wing groups objected to his investigation of atrocities committed by supporters of the dictator Francisco Franco. While prosecutors reportedly disagreed with the charges that Garzón had exceeded his authority, Spanish law allows civilians to lodge criminal charges. If convicted, Garzón could lose his right to sit as a judge in Spain. He appeared before Spain’s Supreme Court today. On Wednesday we will interview Reed Brody, a lawyer with Human Rights Watch who has been in the courtroom observing Garzón’s trial.
Speaking on Democracy Now! last year, Garzón said between 150,000 and 200,000 civilians disappeared during the Franco regime, which seized power during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.
Garzón has used the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to investigate war crimes and torture across national lines, famously indicting Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda in 2003 and attempting to indict members of the Bush administration for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay and overseas. In 1998, he ordered the arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, leading to Pinochet’s arrest in Britain.
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From the Archive: Newt Gingrich Outraged over Amy Goodman's Tough Questions about GOP's "War on Women"
Newt Gingrich’s attacks on reporters who have asked him tough questions during the 2012 Republican presidential primary may sound familiar to Democracy Now! listeners and viewers. Watch the video above to see Amy Goodman question Gingrich about the GOP’s "war on women" and why he hadn’t apologized for calling First Lady Hillary Clinton a "bitch" — first in 1995 during his tenure as speaker of the House and again at the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia.
Click here to see the 1995 comment by Gingrich’s mother that Goodman refers to in her questions. During a nationally broadcast interview on Eye to Eye with Connie Chung , Gingrich’s mother whispered that her son called Hillary Clinton a "bitch."
See all of Democracy Now’s coverage of Election 2012.
AMY GOODMAN : Back in 1995, when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House, I had an interesting conversation with him about the war on women. We’re going to introduce that little interaction with the news piece that introduced it, which was the news anchor at the time, Verna Avery-Brown.
VERNA AVERY - BROWN : The usually unflappable speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, was knocked a bit off stride today during his daily speaker’s conference, when Pacifica reporter Amy Goodman raised the issue of whether Republicans are waging an unofficial war against women with their welfare reform efforts.
AMY GOODMAN : I have a question about tone. You were talking about that earlier. Many people are talking about what’s going on in the House as a war on women, that most of the poor are women, the whole issue about reproductive rights that keeps getting raised. But this is a question not about legislation. Some say you really fired the opening salvo against women when you didn’t apologize to American women for calling the First Lady a bitch. Why haven’t you apologized?
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : I never—I never said I—I never agreed to say anything about that. And I can’t imagine you asking this question.
AMY GOODMAN : Why haven’t you apologized for it?
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : I’ve talked to Mrs. Clinton. She understands exactly where we—
AMY GOODMAN : Why haven’t you apologized to American women, because it goes beyond calling—
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : I never said—I never said—to the best of my knowledge, I never said what you just said.
AMY GOODMAN : So, you’re calling your mother a liar then?
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : No, I’m calling you a remarkably foolish person for having that kind of a conversation here. And I am very sorry you would care to bring what Connie Chung back into the public arena. Connie Chung lied—
AMY GOODMAN : Sir, why—
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : Connie Chung lied to my mother.
AMY GOODMAN : She said—
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : You’re now trying to exploit a lie by a professional reporter to my mother. And I’m not going to take any more comment from you. I think it is very embarrassing that you, as a reporter, would try to take any use of Connie Chung having lied to my mother. And I think you should be ashamed.
AMY GOODMAN : Sir, your mother said it to more reporters than Connie Chung. It’s not about Connie Chung.
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : I think you should be—yes, it is.
AMY GOODMAN : Why haven’t you apologized to American women for calling Hillary Clinton a bitch?
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : Because I—because I didn’t—I’ll say it one more time. You’re trying to use my mother in what I think is a very despicable way. And I am very—
AMY GOODMAN : Your mother said something, and we’re responding to what she said.
SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH : I think it is very sad, and I have advised my mother to talk to no reporters because of precisely this kind of exploitation by people like you. Next question.
AMY GOODMAN : So you’re denying—
AMY GOODMAN : That was Newt Gingrich in 1995 at speaker’s conference, which had been going on for many years. The speaker would hold a news conference every day. He ended it soon after that. Apparently, he blamed it on that interaction, among a few others. I thought it was more to do with the bombing of the Oklahoma City building. It happened just after that that he canceled the speaker’s conference, because his rhetoric sounded too much like those that surrounded Timothy McVeigh.
But anyway, I had a chance to follow up on the conversation when I met Newt Gingrich at Jimmy Hoffa’s party.
AMY GOODMAN : What are you doing now?
NEWT GINGRICH : I’m spending about half my time learning, and then I’m at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution studying. And I have a consulting firm called the Gingrich Group, and I have a website called newt.org. And I’m a commentator on Fox. So, I’m not bored.
AMY GOODMAN : So you’re a commentator. Well, let me ask you for this comment. You’re on national television now. Will you apologize to American women for calling the First Lady a bitch?
NEWT GINGRICH : I never did that. That’s just plain false.
AMY GOODMAN : Your mother said you did.
NEWT GINGRICH : I—no, she did not say I did. That’s just false. Go back and read the record. What you just said is false.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, we heard her telling Connie Chung.
NEWT GINGRICH : And I’m frankly offended. And I’m frankly offended that you would say that.
AMY GOODMAN : You said—
NEWT GINGRICH : I did not say that. Go back and look at the record.
AMY GOODMAN : But your mother said you said it.
NEWT GINGRICH : No, she didn’t. Go back and look at the record. You have it exactly backwards. And I find it very offensive that you would bring up my mother, as I found it offensive when Connie Chung brought up my mother. And I think it’s nuts for the national news media to pick on people who are clearly amateurs, who, in my mother’s case, had opened her home. My father had baked a cake. They were thrilled to be open. And she was exploited by a reporter. And I think it’s a very offensive that you would try to exploit my mother, which is what you just did.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, it was your mother, who said that you had called—
NEWT GINGRICH : No, she didn’t say that. Listen to what I said.
AMY GOODMAN : She did say it.
NEWT GINGRICH : She did not say that I called her that.
AMY GOODMAN : She did say it. But then my question is, you were talking about the Contract with America.
NEWT GINGRICH : I have nothing to say to you. If you’re telling me what my mother said, that’s pretty offensive.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, she said it on national television.
NEWT GINGRICH : No, she didn’t.
AMY GOODMAN : You were describing—
NEWT GINGRICH : No, no, no.
GINGRICH AIDE : There’s no more. There’s no more. There’s no more.
AMY GOODMAN : As you were—
NEWT GINGRICH : No.
AMY GOODMAN : Well, no, I have a fair question to ask that I’d like you to respond to.
NEWT GINGRICH : No, no, no.
GINGRICH AIDE : There’s plenty of nice people here who are interested in talking. We don’t need—you know, we’re here with friendly people. You’re being rude, just not nice.
AMY GOODMAN : I’m not being rude. I’m asking a very serious question.
GINGRICH AIDE : OK, but we—we’re not—we’re not going—we’re not talking about it anymore.
AMY GOODMAN : And that was the interaction with Newt Gingrich at the Jimmy Hoffa party that was sponsored by the Republicans.
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Mumia Abu-Jamal Transferred Out of Solitary Confinement, Into General Population
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections tells Democracy Now! it has transferred Mumia Abu-Jamal out of solitary confinement and into general population. The move comes seven weeks after Philadelphia prosecutor Seth Williams announced he would not pursue the death penalty against the imprisoned journalist. Abu-Jamal’s legal team confirmed the move in an email from attorney, Judy Ritter. "This is a very important moment for him, his family and all of his supporters," Ritter wrote.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal note prison officials just received more than 5,000 petitions calling for his transfer and release. Superintendent John Kerestes has previously said Abu-Jamal would have to cut short his dreadlocks, and meet several other conditions, before a transfer would be allowed.
While on death row at SCI Green, Abu-Jamal made regular phone calls to Prison Radio in order to record his columns and essays, but prison officials revoked his phone privileges after he was moved to SCI Mahanoy, the Frackville, PA prison in which he’s currently being held. Prison Radio has since announced it will continue to record and distribute Abu-Jamal’s essays as read by his well-known supporters.
Click here to listen to Noam Chomsky read Of Idiots and Sages.
See all of Democracy Now’s coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
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