“Most of the time, the story will be about how some obscure writer took on an under-reported story as a passion project, only to watch as weeks later, outfits with bigger megaphones pick up on the news and reap acclaim without acknowledging the folks that did the heavy lifting. Occasionally, however, you find stories like the one Bill Conroy is telling, which go a step beyond.
Conroy writes for The Narco News Bulletin, a website dedicated to covering the news of the Drug War. As Conroy describes, for six years now, the site has been covering what’s come to be called the ‘House of Death’ story.”
“The Liberty City Seven, the Fort Dix Six, the Detroit Ummah Conspiracy, the Newburgh Four—each has had their fear-filled day in the sun. None of these plots ever came close to happening. How could they? All were bogus from the get-go: money to buy missiles or cell phones or shoes and fancy duds—provided by the authorities; plans for how to use the missiles and bombs and cell phones—provided by authorities; cars for transport and demolition—issued by the authorities; facilities for carrying out the transactions—leased by those same authorities. Played out on landscapes manufactured by federal imagineers, the climax of each drama was foreordained. The failure of the plots would then be touted as the success of the investigations and prosecutions.”
The above is from Stephan Salisbury’s amazing article “Stage Managing the War on Terror“, which details just how bad the situation of informant handling has become… and how it puts us at risk. Tonight, Mike and Mark speak with Salisbury about this incredibly well-researched piece.
About the guest:
Stephan Salisbury is the senior cultural writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has been a reporter for three decades.
He has won numerous awards for his work and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize as part of an Inquirer investigative team looking into local election fraud.
He is author of the recently published Mohamed’s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland published by Nation Books.
The 100 Years Episode – 4 Federal Agents talk about the state of Security and intelligence both in the U.S. and around the world.
Then…
We talked about the story last week – but this week, we got someone who is actually involved in the case. Mark interviews David Rocah, ACLU attorney for Anthony Graber – the motorcyclist who is being prosecuted for wiretapping after he posted a video of a law enforcement officer pulling him over on a highway exit ramp.
Here’s the video in question… the action begins at about the three-minute mark:
Tonight’s show is a smorgasbord… from violence & US weapons in Mexico, to corruption in the U.S., to a resolution ensuring that citizens retain a right to videotape law enforcement pros on the job.
Our favorite reporter Bill Conroy joins us to discuss these and more…
About the Guest:
Bill Conroy has worked as a reporter or editor for the past eighteen years at newspapers in Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota and Texas.
His investigative reporting over the past five years has focused on corruption and discrimination within federal law enforcement agencies.
He is also a journalist for Narco News. His investigative pieces, particularly those on the House of Death, have made him our most-favored guest.
These archives are currently being rebuilt in this new format, and being added to a master RSS feed that will allow you to access ALL of our past shows. Your patience is appreciated – we’re an all-volunteer unit here, and there are well over a decade of shows to post.
Those of you who feel intrepid can browse the raw folder of audio files while we reconstruct.
Also – you can now subscribe to our podcast – both through that RSS feed, or through iTunes.
Plunder: The Crime of Our Time is a hard-hitting investigative film by Danny Schechter. The “News Dissector” explores how the financial crisis was built on a foundation of criminal activity uncovering the connection between the collapse of the housing market and the economic catastrophe that followed.
The film opens with the conviction of Ponzi King Bernie Madoff, whose acknowledged criminality drove a $65 billion dollar pyramid scheme. It argues that the wrong doing committed by a few individuals distracts from the real story, implicating the best-known institutions that financed and profited from fraudulent sub prime lending. This connection is now being investigated by the FBI as part of a probe into what it calls a “fraud epidemic.”
PLUNDER shows how these firms created special securities to repackage and resell these dubious loans after they were re-rated as Triple A. These firms then bet against many of these toxic assets with credit default swaps and other insurance scams. By leveraging these investments, they recklessly put trillions of dollars and the world economy at risk.
Tonight, Mike and Mark speak with Danny Schechter about the film, media and about 20 other things…. a great, freewheeling conversation with the “Uber-investigative-journalist.”
More on the film, including how to get it on both DVD and iTunes – at the Plunder website.
About the guest:
Danny Schechter is a journalist, author, television producer and an independent filmmaker who also writes and speaks about economic and media issues.
He is the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, the world’s largest online media issues online network, and recipient of many awards including the Society of Professional Journalists’ 2001 Award for Excellence in Documentary Journalism.
His latest films are “Barack Obama, People’s President [2009], an examination of how Obama won and “IN DEBT WE TRUST: America Before The Bubble Bursts,” [2007] an investigation of the impact of credit and debt on American society.
In Debt We Trust was one of the first films or media coverage to expose subprime lending and warn of an economic crisis. He was a director on “Viva Madiba,” a feature-length biopic tribute to Nelson Mandela on his 90th Birthday. (2008).
For those who have heard him previously, either on or off of our airwaves, you know what a powerhouse thinker he is – and tonight’s show just proves the point even more.
Tonight – a rollicking conversation with Howard Bloom about war, intelligence, history and the future of energy.
About the guest:
Howard Bloom, a Visiting Scholar at New York University, is founder of the International Paleopsychology Project, executive editor of the New Paradigm book series, a founding board member of the Epic of Evolution Society, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Society, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, The International Society of Human Ethology, and the Academy of Political Science. He has been featured in every edition of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering since the publication’s inception.
Almost four decades after Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers – another whistleblower has stepped forward and now is facing similar retaliation.
Army Intelligence Specialist Bradley Manning is alleged to have turned over a large volume of classified material about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to Wikileaks.org, including the recently posted U.S. military video showing American helicopters gunning down two Reuters journalists and about 10 other Iraqi men in 2007. Two children were also injured.
The 22-year-old Manning was turned in by a convicted computer hacker named Adrian Lamo, who befriended Manning over the Internet and then betrayed him, supposedly out of concern that disclosure of the classified material might put U.S. military personnel in danger. Manning is now in U.S. military custody in Kuwait awaiting charges.
PLUS
A congressional report on Iran/Contra was written haphazardly and deceptively, including an apparently false claim that Reagan’s innocence was approved unanimously by a House task force.
A recent reexamination of the task force’s work also reveals that evidence implicating Reagan’s campaign in a pre-election deal to delay the release of 52 Americans then held hostage in Iran was kept from the U.S. public and even from members of the task force; that senior staff investigators shelved late-arriving evidence of Republican guilt; and that dissent within the task force was suppressed.
Tonight, Mike and Mark speak with Robert Parry about these two important stories.
About the guest:
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com.
His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’ are also available there.
His investigative journalism website, consortiumnews.com, is an incredibly important resource. Please visit the site, and support them any way you can.
A targeted assassination on the Texas border… Corruption in a New Mexico drug task force… How safe IS the Canadian border… and the U.S. Military has Special Ops Boots on the Ground in Mexico…
All border stories, plus an amusing piece from Slate.
This is a jam-packed show with Bill Conroy of Narco News, covering the above and more.
About the Guest:
Bill Conroy has worked as a reporter or editor for the past eighteen years at newspapers in Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota and Texas.
His investigative reporting over the past five years has focused on corruption and discrimination within federal law enforcement agencies.
He is also a journalist for Narco News. His investigative pieces, particularly those on the House of Death, have made him our most-favored guest.
Power and Corruption in the Country’s Greatest Police Force
On the heels of a botched car bombing attempt in Times Square – Mike and Mark are joined by author and veteran reporter Leonard Levitt to talk about the relationship between the NYPD and Federal Inteligence agencies, and much much much more.
About the Guest:
From 1995 to 2005, Leonard Levitt wrote the column “One Police Plaza” for the newspaper Newsday about the New York City police department. Before joining Newsday, he worked as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Detroit News, as a correspondent for Time Magazine, and as the investigations editor of the New York Post. His work has appeared in Harper’s, Esquire and the New York Times magazine.
Levitt is the author of six books, the most recent of which is NYPD Confidential: Power and Corruption in the Country’s Greatest Police Force. He received the 2005 non-fiction Edgar Award for Conviction: Solving the Moxley Murder.
A graduate of Dartmouth College and the Columbia School of Journalism, Levitt served two years in the Peace Corps in Tanzania, East Africa, and has been the recipient of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for the Humanities.
The above is from Stephan Salisbury’s amazing article “
Bill Conroy has worked as a reporter or editor for the past eighteen years at newspapers in Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota and Texas.
Howard Bloom, a Visiting Scholar at New York University, is founder of the International Paleopsychology Project, executive editor of the New Paradigm book series, a founding board member of the Epic of Evolution Society, and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Society, the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, The International Society of Human Ethology, and the Academy of Political Science. He has been featured in every edition of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering since the publication’s inception. 
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com.
From 1995 to 2005, Leonard Levitt wrote the column “One Police Plaza” for the newspaper Newsday about the New York City police department. Before joining Newsday, he worked as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Detroit News, as a correspondent for Time Magazine, and as the investigations editor of the New York Post. His work has appeared in Harper’s, Esquire and the New York Times magazine.
