Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes and Stitcher Radio, and may not be safe for work.

Liberal Oasis (video): Pat Robertson "honored" for his stand on the Oklahoma tornado.

On Point with Tom Ashbrook: The History, Sounds, and Politics of Heavy Metal Music.

Decode DC: Covering the immigration story by listening to stories by actual immigrants.

And then there's this: If you like Game of Thrones, you might be interested in this list of all-woman Game of Thrones Fancasts.

Open thread below...

Massachusetts Republican and candidate running for John Kerry's Senate seat Gabriel Gomez is true billionaire tea party material. He's a guy who made most of his money in hedge funds, has good buddies in lofty financial circles, and hates anyone who isn't as extreme as he is.

Gomez became a TeaPublican rock star during the 2012 elections, when he appeared on various networks touting those horrid SwiftBoat OPSEC ads funded by pals of Mitt Romney.

He's a nasty sort. Snarky and unafraid to be a general jerk, just as he was here. Politico:

“I don’t think there’s anything more offensive,” Gomez said, according to a YouTube clip of the exchange, which took place after an event at a local Chamber of Commerce. “You know I’ve got four young kids, and they gotta sit there and gotta see an ad with their dad — who served honorably, talk to anybody I served with — whether as a pilot or as a SEAL, anybody I worked with. And for him to be as dirty and low, pond scum, like to put me up next to bin Laden, he’s just gotta be called what he is. It’s that simple.”

Oooo, someone's chain got yanked. Markey was having none of it:

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That's a video promotion for Teach for America, the reformer billionaires' favorite educational non-profit organization. The general concept is to take college graduates, no matter what their major is, give them six weeks of training and then send them out to teach kids in inner-city schools. In theory, it's a really nice idea. In practice, it's not really working all that well. At least, not for the students.

TFA rakes in donations every year in larger and larger amounts from the usual suspects like Gates, Bloomberg, Walton and DeVos along with others who see them as a wonderful helper to the end goal of privatizing education.

Along the way, state governments have tried to sneak public grants into the budget for TFA, too. This time, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton used his line-item veto to just say no. His reasoning was impeccable. From his letter (PDF):

Teach for America (TFA) is a well-established, national program with revenues totaling $270 million for fiscal year 2011 (its most recent annual report). With total expenses of$219 million, TFA's net assets increased by over $50 million and now total over $350 million. With those financial resources available, it is not clear why a $1.5 million grant from the State of Minnesota is required to continue or expand the organization's work here.

My principal concern, however, is the way in which TFA was selected as the recipient of this grant. To my knowledge, no competitive grant program was established; no other applications were solicited; and no objective review was made by an independent panel of experts. Instead, the funds were inserted into the Senate's Higher Education bill, directed to this organization, and retained in the Conference Committee's report.

If the Legislature deems it is in our state's best interest to encourage programs like TFA, a formal grant program should be established within the Minnesota Department of Education, and all qualifying organizations should be allowed to apply for funding. The legislation should establish the goals for such a program and the results by which its effectiveness will be evaluated. This type of competitive grants process would be a fairer way to distribute public funds.

Applause to Governor Dayton for his sound objection to using state funds for private purposes. Well done, Governor!

Today is Towel Day! Don't forget your towels, hoopy froods!

More details on how to celebrate at the Towel Day website.

Open thread below...

The upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is using a process that is rigged from the start. It is not being negotiated by governments for the benefit of their people, it is being negotiated by executives (or future executives/lobbyists currently in government) largely for the benefit of the giant corporations they serve. The process has these giant corporations "in the loop" but groups citizens, working people, consumers, the environment, human rights groups and especially democracy are not part of the process. That can only go one way: if you don't have a seat at the table you are on the table -- the meal.

Chile's TPP Negotiator Quits, Warns Citizens

Rodrigo Contreras, Chile's lead TPP negotiator recently up and quit to warn people of the dangers this agreement poses to everyone except the giant multinational corporations. In The New Chessboard, (English translation) Contreras warns that the TPP is solidifying multinational corporate control over the Internet, copyrights, patents (especially drug patents), and in particular warns that the giant financial interests are solidifying their current control over the regulatory process. He writes that this will block countries that are trying to "restore the space for applying financial safeguards. In these circumstances it does not makes sense to further liberalize capital flows, depriving us of legitimate tools to safeguard financial stability."

In particular, Contreras warns that smaller countries face a threat from this agreement's solidifying of the control of the giant multinationals, concluding,

It is critical to reject the imposition of a model designed according to realities of high-income countries, which are very different from the other participating countries.

Otherwise, this agreement will become a threat for our countries: it will restrict our development options in health and education, in biological and cultural diversity, and in the design of public policies and the transformation of our economies. It will also generate pressures from increasingly active social movements, who are not willing to grant a pass to governments that accept an outcome of the TPPnegotiations that limits possibilities to increase the prosperity and well-being of our countries.

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Score one for the good guys. Sheriff Joe has had the smackdown put on him in a 142-page ruling over his penchant for persecuting Hispanics and other brown people. AZCentral:

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow issued the ruling Friday, more than eight months after a seven-day trial on the subject concluded. The trial examined longstanding allegations that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s emphasis on immigration enforcement led deputies to target Latino drivers based on their race, and that by doing so, they violated the constitutional rights of Maricopa County residents and the sheriff’s own policies requiring constitutional policing.

Snow’s ruling will likely be appealed, as both sides promised throughout the trial to challenge whatever decision Snow rendered. However, Arpaio’s attorney said he was still reviewing the ruling Friday afternoon.

Dan Pochoda of the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union called the ruling “a real vindication for the community. It was a terrific win — it was a very solid, comprehensive piece of work, and clearly demonstrated the unconstitutionality from top to bottom at MCSO for many years.”

The class of Hispanic citizens that brought the racial-profiling lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office never sought monetary damages. Instead, the group asked for the court to issue injunctions barring Arpaio’s office from discriminatory policing.

Snow obliged — and indicated more remedies could be ordered in the future.

“Therefore, in the absence of further facts that would give rise to reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a violation of either federal criminal law or applicable state law is occurring, the MCSO is enjoined from (1) enforcing its LEAR policy (on checking the immigration status of people detained without state charges), (2) using Hispanic ancestry or race as any factor in making law enforcement decisions pertaining to whether a person is authorized to be in the country, and (3) unconstitutionally lengthening stops,” Snow wrote in his 142-page ruling.

Here's a suggestion for Sheriff Joe. Rather than mulling over your appeal possibilities, just give up on this, step down and let someone who isn't an ancient racist scumbag take over.

RH Reality Check: The fallacy of rape, incest, and life endangerment clauses.

Whiskey Fire:: It is not at all difficult to predict the effects of the latest scandals on any future election.

The Moderate Voice: Can Chris Christie win the GOP nomination?

Flip the News: There may be a pill for that.

Satirical Political Report: Proof that the IRS was merely incompetent.

Guest post by Batocchio. E-mail tips to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

Via Media Matters, if Fox News made a sexual harassment video, it would be a "how to" not a "how to avoid."

Open thread below....

Luckily for Erick (who seems to believe people "become" gay, the doughy rube), there are still a few societies left on the planet that he might feel more comfortable raising his son in -- like Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Uganda.

Should we buy him a ticket?

This reminds us that the big "GOP Rebranding" project I keep reading about -- which is supposed to usher in a more libertarian, less hateful Republicanism -- won't amount to much until the party can purge the Teamams like Erickson. Good luck with that, guys.

Barry Goldwater weeps.

It's like they say: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Especially when it comes to right-wing extremists.

As Karoli reported yesterday, now the conspiracy theorists are claiming that President Obama deliberately created the killer tornadoes that swept Oklahoma last week, with Alex Jones (of course) leading the way.

It's not just Jones. Some Oklahoma versions of Truther nutcases, as Alexander Abad-Santos reports at The Atlantic, are also jumping aboard with a variation on Jones' theory:

So, yes, the Oklahoma tornado truthers claim the administration whipped up a storm that killed 24 people through HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, in Alaska. Here's a screen grab of a contributor post on Before It's News, a citizen journalist website that's home to many of these conspiracy theories, from a contributor who says this is "compelling evidence" that HAARP is at work:

As Gawker's Ken Layne writes, the "stated goal of HAARP is to study the ionosphere and how the spectrum of radio waves works within these upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere." Essentially, HAARP researches communications. But there are budding conspiracy theories that HAARP could be ultimately used to disrupt the ionosphere, and manipulate weather patterns. As one Redditor pointed out, one of the permutations of the conspiracy theory in Moore is that the left-wing financier George "the Sorcerer" Soros is behind all of this.

Actually, the HAARP theory has been around since about 1994, when it was being avidly promoted by Militia of Montana founder John Trochmann. Here's how he explained it to his audience at a militia meeting in western Washington in 1995, as I reported it in my first book, In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest:

Trochmann then turns on the overhead projector and puts on the cover page. It reads: ``Enemies, Foreign and Domestic: Part I -- The Problem.’’ A few words: ``You’ll have to excuse me, I’m going to fly right through this, because it takes about an hour and a half.’’ He flips to the next sheet. It’s the cover of a military journal with a story about international armed forces cooperating under United Nations auspices, and the cover illustration shows a number of nations’ flags, including the Stars and Stripes, all subordinately positioned beneath a U.N. flag.

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