Democracy Now! March 31, 2009 - Seymour Hersh

Today's Headlines

• Obama: Plan for GM May Involve Bankruptcy
• Obama Accused of Double Standard on Bailouts
• GM CEO to Receive $20 Million in Retirement Benefits
• US Seeks International Support for Surge in Afghanistan
• Dozens of Israeli Jets and Drones Attacked Sudan in January
• Israeli Military Ends Probe of Army Misconduct in Gaza
• US to Release Yemeni Doctor from Guantanamo
• Detained US Journalists to be Tried in North Korea
• Boston College Bars Bill Ayers from Speaking on Campus
• Canadian Judge Upholds Ban on British MP George Galloway
• EPA to Monitor Air Quality Outside 62 Schools
• Gov’t-Run Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Lost Billions in Risky Investments
• Goldman Sachs Exec Donated to Obama Senate Campaign After He Left Senate
• César Chávez Day Marked in Eight States

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  Seymour Hersh: Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Counties, Including in Latin America

  Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh created a stir earlier this month when he said the Bush administration ran an “executive assassination ring” that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney. “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving,” Hersh said. Seymour Hersh joins us to explain. [includes rush transcript]

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  Seymour Hersh on "Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace"

  In the latest issue of The New Yorker, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh looks at Syria’s emerging role in the politics of Middle East peace. He also reveals new details on the behind-the-scenes dealings of the Bush administration and the then-incoming Obama camp during the Israeli attack on Gaza. The article is called “Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace.”

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  "The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience"

  The current financial crisis is widely described as the nation’s worst since the Great Depression. With the comparisons to the 1930s has come a renewed focus on the New Deal, the government initiative of social programs and public service jobs launched by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A new book argues that no voice in the FDR administration was more influential in shaping the New Deal than Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, the first-ever woman cabinet member in the United States. The book is called The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. We speak with author Kirstin Downey.