The Obama administration has promised to begin moving the 700 odd men held in the Bagram prison in Afghanistan into a new 60 million dollar facility by next month. But in a video released by Brave New Films, two men who were held in the notorious detention center ask how much of a difference this will make when its unclear why people were arrested in the first place. The two brothers Abdel and Noor Raqeeb, say they were held without formal charges, tortured, only to be released with an apology for being mistaken for Taliban spokesperson.[Includes rush transcript]

The Cannabis Cafe, which opened this month in Portland, Oregon is the first marijuana cafe of its kind in the country. Although it doesn’t sell marijuana on the premises, the Cannabis Café allows any of Portland’s estimated 21,000 licensed medical-marijuana users a space to consume marijuana in a social setting. We speak with Madeline Martinez, executive-Director of the Oregon chapter of NORML—The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws—which runs the Cannabis Café.[Includes rush transcript]

The University of California, Berkeley is investigating allegations of police brutality against students and workers protesting fee hikes and budget cuts last week. 40 students were arrested Friday night after campus police entered Wheeler Hall, which the students had taken over earlier in the day. The students were part of a statewide movement protesting the UC Board of Regents decision to raise tuition by 32 percent. Independent journalist Brandon Jourdan, who was embedded with the students inside the occupied building on Friday, files a report for Democracy Now![includes rush transcript].

In an explosive new article in The Nation magazine, investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the private military firm Blackwater is part of a covert program in Pakistan that includes planning the assassination and kidnapping of Taliban and Al-Qaeda suspects. Blackwater is also said to be involved in a previously undisclosed U.S. military drone campaign that has killed scores of people inside Pakistan. The article says the program has become so secretive that top Obama administration and military officials have likely been unaware of its existence. In a Democracy Now! exclusive, Scahill joins us for his first interview since the story broke.[Includes rush transcript]

With the Copenhagen climate summit two weeks away, best-selling journalist Naomi Klein examines the grass-roots movement behind the climate debate proposal that argues all the costs associated with adapting to a more hostile ecology—everything from building stronger sea walls to switching to cleaner, more expensive technologies—are the responsibility of the countries that created the crisis. Klein also discusses the 10th anniversary of the Seattle WTO protests and the 10th anniversary of her first book, “No Logo.” [includes rush transcript]

Health care reform cleared its first hurdle in the Senate this weekend. In a party line vote of 60-39, the Senate voted Saturday evening to open debate on the bill put forward by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. All 58 Democrats and both Independents voted in favor of the motion while 39 out of 40 Republicans voted against it. At a news conference immediately following the vote, Reid said “The road ahead is a long stretch but we can see the finish line.” We speak to Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post about the vote and the House Finance Committee’s vote to audit the Federal Reserve. [includes rush transcript]

Israel is coming under widespread international criticism for its plan to engage in a new round of illegal settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian land. Israel says it will build 900 new housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority leaders began a renewed effort last week to win international support for formal Security Council endorsement of a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders. We speak with UCLA professor Saree Makdisi, author of Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation. [includes rush transcript]

Thousands are gathering at Fort Benning in Georgia this weekend for the annual protest to shut down the US Army training center dubbed by critics as the “School of the Assassins” for having trained some of the worst human rights violators in Latin America. This year’s protest will mark the twentieth anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador by the US-backed Salvadoran military. It comes days after the priests were posthumously bestowed El Salvador’s highest civilian award, marking the first time the Salvadoran government has honored the priests since their deaths. To talk about the priests and the overall state of Latin American affairs, we’re joined by Blase Bonpane, director of the Office of the Americas. A former Maryknoll priest, he has worked for more than four decades to promote human rights in Latin America. [includes rush transcript]

Amid thousands of student protesters and armed police standing guard, the University of California’s Board of Regents has approved a 32 percent increase in student fees. The vote will bring the total cost of a UC education to more than $10,000 per year for the first time. We discuss the protests and the growing privatization of public education with UCLA student activist Zen Dochterman and the president of the UC American Federation of Teachers, Bob Samuels. [includes rush transcript]

A pair of new government reports released this week paint a startling picture more than a year after the economic meltdown. On Tuesday, the New York Comptroller Office said Wall Street profits are set to exceed the record set three years ago. The four largest firms took in $22.5 billion in profits through September. Meanwhile, far more people are going hungry in the United States than previously thought. The Department of Agriculture estimates 50 million Americans, including a quarter of all children, struggled to get enough to eat last year. We speak to veteran journalist Robert Scheer. [includes rush transcript]

Plans for Iraq to hold elections in January are up in the air after Iraq’s vice president vetoed part of an election law over the allocation of seats to Iraqis displaced by the US invasion and occupation. Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who is Sunni, said he objected to Article One of the election law approved by parliament this month because it did not give a voice to Iraqis abroad. We speak to Iraqi political analyst Raed Jarrar. [includes rush transcript]

President Barack Obama’s first official trip to China resulted in no firm agreements and has been criticized as being tightly scripted by Beijing. We discuss Obama’s visit and the future of US-Chinese relations with British author and journalist Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order. [includes rush transcript]

We take a look at how the consumer loan industry continues to squeeze customers. Last year the Federal Reserve Board announced new rules for banks to remove unfair credit card practices, and in May of this year Congress passed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009. In a joint FRONTLINE/New York Times investigation, The Card Game, longtime investigative journalist and FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman talked to industry insiders, lobbyists, politicians and consumer advocates about how to reform the way the consumer loan industry has done business for decades. [includes rush transcript]

As California struggles with a crippling $21 billion project deficit, professor and progressive activist George Lakoff has submitted a 2010 ballot proposition that would roll back the two-thirds majority needed to pass a budget and, he says, end the gridlock created by minority rule. [includes rush transcript]

Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart has been ordered to prison to begin serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence after a federal appeals court upheld her conviction on Tuesday. Lynne Stewart was found guilty in 2005 of distributing press releases on behalf of her jailed client, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the “Blind Sheikh,” who is serving a life sentence on terror-related charges. The panel also described Stewart’s twenty-eight-month sentence as “strikingly low” and sent the case back to the trial judge to determine whether she deserved a longer prison term. In a Democracy Now! national broadcast exclusive, Lynne Stewart joins us from New York. [includes rush transcript]

More than 49 million Americans—or one in seven—struggled to find enough to eat last year, according to a report from the US Department of Agriculture released Monday. That’s the highest total since the federal government began keeping track of food insecurity. Meanwhile, leaders from most of the world are gathered in Rome to tackle hunger on a global scale at the UN World Food Summit, but leaders of the world’s richest countries were largely absent from the summit. We speak with Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System. [includes rush transcript]

President Obama’s nominee for the Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the office of the US Trade Representative, Islam Siddiqui is currently a vice president at CropLife America, a coalition of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry, including Syngenta, Monsanto, and Dow Chemical. He was previously a lobbyist for CropLife and also served in the US Department of Agriculture under President Clinton and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. A coalition of over eighty environmental, family farm and consumer advocacy organizations have sent a letter to the Senate Finance Committee urging them to reject his nomination. [includes rush transcript]

The governing body of the University of California system, the Board of Regents, is preparing to vote on a major tuition hike for both undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduate tuition would rise an average 32 percent, while some graduate schools would begin charging thousands of dollars for programs that are currently tuition-free. The Regents are meeting Thursday at UCLA, where students from across the state are converging for what organizers have dubbed a “Crisis Fest,” including mass protests, civil disobedience and teach-ins. [includes rush transcript]

His name might not be familiar to many, but his songs are sung by millions around the world. Today, a journey through the life and work of Yip Harburg, the Broadway lyricist who wrote such hits as “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and who put the music into The Wizard of Oz. Born into poverty on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Yip always included a strong social and political component to his work, fighting racism and poverty. A lifelong socialist, Yip was blacklisted and hounded throughout much of his life.

Taking us on today’s trip through the music and politics of Yip is his son, Ernie Harburg. First, we’re going to go through Yip’s early life, his collaboration with the Gershwin’s, through “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Then we’re going to take an in-depth look at The Wizard of Oz. And finally, we’ll hear a medley of Yip Harburg’s Broadway songs and the politics of the times in which they were created. [includes rush transcript]

The anti-poverty group ACORN has filed a lawsuit against the US government that accuses Congress of punitively targeting the organization. In September, the Senate and the House voted on legislation to strip ACORN of federal funding following the release of a video in which employees of ACORN were secretly recorded giving tax advice to two conservative activists dressed up as a pimp and a prostitute. ACORN has long been a target of right-wing scorn for its work helping poor people fight foreclosures, fix tax problems, and register to vote. We speak with Bill Quigley, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who filed the lawsuit on ACORN’s behalf. [includes rush transcript]

Federal prosecutors have moved to seize four mosques and a New York skyscraper belonging to a non-profit foundation with alleged financial ties to Iran. The Council on American-Islamic Relations warns that the seizure of places of worship may have First Amendment implications for the American Muslim community. [includes rush transcript]

After eight years of broadcasting out of Downtown Community Television’s historic firehouse, Democracy Now! is moving to new studios. DCTV’s Keiko Tsuno and Jon Alpert took us in shortly before the 9/11 attacks, giving us a beloved home in one of the country’s leading community television centers. We will be on the road for two weeks and then begin broadcasting from our new studios in an old graphic arts building occupied for years by printing presses. [includes rush transcript]

Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce today that five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be tried in a criminal court in New York instead of a military commission. The move marks one of the first major steps by the Obama administration to close the prison at Guantanamo. To assess the future of Guantanamo Bay and the more than 200 men still in detention there, we speak with British journalist and historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. [includes rush transcript]

Homeowners in New London, Connecticut took on the city’s leaders after they announced plans to condemn all of the homes in one neighborhood to make way for a private development project for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The city said it would bring in thousands of jobs. After a 2005 Supreme Court ruling against the homeowners, the entire neighborhood was bulldozed. This week Pfizer announced it is shutting down its research center. [includes rush transcript]

A new documentary looks at a man once described as the most hated and most loved lawyer in America: the late William Kunstler. We play excerpts of William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe and speak to the film’s co-directors, Kunstler’s daughters Emily and Sarah Kunstler. [includes rush transcript]

The Environmental Protection Agency is being accused of trying to silence two longtime EPA enforcement attorneys who have publicly criticized a key component of the climate change legislation being considered by Congress. Last week the EPA directed Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel to remove or edit a video they posted to YouTube that warns a cap-and-trade plan will not effectively combat global warming and is “fatally flawed.” The couple instead advocate for a solution involving carbon fees with rebates. [includes rush transcript]

In a last-minute dissent ahead of a critical war cabinet meeting on escalating the Afghan war, US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry has cast doubt on a troop escalation until the Afghan government can address corruption and other internal problems. Meanwhile, a report reveals how the US government is financing the very same insurgent forces in Afghanistan that American and NATO soldiers are fighting. Investigative journalist Aram Roston traces how the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack. [includes rush transcript]

The parents of US Army Reserve Specialist Chancellor Keesling, an Iraq war veteran, received a letter yesterday from the VA asking that their son complete his “Post Deployment Adjustment.” The only problem is, Chance Keesling had killed himself in Iraq nearly five months ago. We speak with Chance’s dad, Gregg Keesling, who’s still waiting for the letter he’s never received: condolences from President Obama. A longstanding US policy denies presidential condolence letters to the families of soldiers who have committed suicide. [includes rush transcript]

The rate of sexual assaults within the US military also exceeds that of the general population. A Pentagon report earlier this year found one in three female servicemembers are sexually assaulted at least once during their enlistment. Sixty-three percent of nearly 3,000 cases reported last year were rapes or aggravated assaults. Despite what some have called an epidemic of military sexual trauma, the delivery of healthcare to women veterans remains grossly inadequate. [includes rush transcript]

On Veterans Day, a new study estimates four times as many US Army veterans died last year because they lacked health insurance than the total number of US soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same period. A research team at Harvard Medical School says 2,266 veterans under the age of sixty-five died in 2008 because they were uninsured. We speak to the report’s co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of medicine at Harvard University and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. [includes rush transcript]

John Perkins calls himself a former economic hit man. He has seen the signs of today’s financial meltdown before. The subprime mortgage fiasco, the collapse of the banking industry, the rising unemployment rate—these are all familiar to him. Perkins was on the front lines of monitoring and helping create these very events that were once just confined to the Third World. From 1971 to 1981, he worked for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main, where he was a self-described “economic hit man.” He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Confessions of An Economic Hit Man and The Secret History of the American Empire. [includes rush transcript]

Earlier this year, the IMF and the World Bank warned that the financial crisis posed a serious challenge to reducing poverty. The World Bank predicted that the economic crisis could push another 53 million people in the global South into poverty. Well, according to the latest numbers from the United Nations, we’re now up to 2.7 billion people around the world who survive on less than two dollars a day, one billion of whom live on less than a dollar a day. Given the dire statistics and the widening gap between the rich and the poor, how can we see the eradication of poverty? That’s the central question of a new documentary called The End of Poverty? [includes rush transcript]

The New York-based Toxics Targeting went through the Department of Environmental Conservation’s own database of hazardous substances spills over the past thirty years. They found 270 cases documenting fires, explosions, wastewater spills, well contamination and ecological damage related to gas drilling. Many of the cases remain unresolved. The findings are contrary to repeated government assurances that existing natural gas well regulations are sufficient to safeguard the environment and public health. The state is considering allowing for gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale watershed, the source of drinking water for 15 million people, including nine million New Yorkers. [includes rush transcript]

An American-mediated accord to end the four-month political crisis in the country appears to be in shambles just a week after it was signed. On Friday, ousted President Manuel Zelaya, who remains in the Brazilian embassy, declared the deal was over. Meanwhile, coup president Roberto Micheletti said he would install a national unity government without the participation of Zelaya. We speak to President Zelaya from the Brazilian embassy. [includes rush transcript]

As families and friends mourn the thirteen individuals who were shot dead at the Fort Hood military base in Texas, questions continue to be raised about what might have motivated Thursday’s rampage. The suspected gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was an Army psychiatrist who had spent most of his career at Walter Reed Hospital before being transferred to Fort Hood earlier this year. He had also recently received orders to deploy to Afghanistan. We speak to Private Michael Kern from Fort Hood and independent journalist and author Dahr Jamail. [includes rush transcript]

The bill has been described as the biggest overhaul of the country’s healthcare system since the Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965. Among those who voted no was Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, a leading proponent of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all healthcare system. Reproductive rights took a hit Saturday night when the House also passed an amendment to establish limits on the funding of abortions within the new framework that would be established by the Affordable Health Care for America Act. [includes rush transcript]

Over the past eight years, acclaimed actor, documentarian and playwright Anna Deavere Smith has interviewed hundreds of people—doctors and patients, celebrities and regular folks, Americans and people from around the world—about their struggles with illness, pain, mortality and the healthcare system. She has distilled a sampling of their emotionally charged stories into her latest powerful solo show, Let Me Down Easy. [includes rush transcript]

As House Democrats prepare to vote on their version of a healthcare reform bill this weekend, a man who used to be the face of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida decided he’s had enough with the way the health insurance industry is impeding reform. Actor and comedian Andy Cobb used to promote Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. But now he’s broken with his former employer and is speaking out against the entire private health insurance industry that has strongly opposed any government-run health plan. [includes rush transcript]

In the worst mass killing at a military base in the nation’s history, thirteen people have been killed and another thirty wounded at Fort Hood, Texas. The suspect, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had reportedly complained of being harassed for being a Muslim and had tried to leave the military. It was the second such attack in the past six months, following the May shooting deaths of five US soldiers at Camp Liberty in Iraq. We speak to Qaseem Uqdah of American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council and independent journalist Aaron Glantz, author of The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans. [includes rush transcript]

There have been a number of recent developments around the controversial practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, wherein coal companies remove the tops of mountains with explosives. Last week, the Obama administration indicated it will not immediately cancel Bush-era changes to a rule protecting streams from mountaintop removal mining. The move came as groups opposed to mountaintop removal mining organized nationwide sit-ins demanding EPA intervention to stop the blasting of Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, which Massey Energy began dynamiting last week. We host a debate between journalist and mountaintop removal critic Jeff Biggers and Carol Raulston of the National Mining Association. [includes rush transcript]

In a landmark case, twenty-three Americans, mostly CIA operatives, have been convicted in Italy for kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003. They were all tried in absentia after the United States refused to hand them over. The convictions turn them into international fugitives who risk arrest abroad. The case marks the first time any American has been convicted for taking part in a so-called “extraordinary rendition.” We go to Rome to speak with the Italian prosecutor who brought the case, Armando Spataro, and get comment from international law and human rights attorney Scott Horton. [includes rush transcript]

With the Copenhagen climate summit just a month away, a new investigative series looks at how rural Brazilians are being displaced so their forest can be turned into carbon offsets for some of the world’s biggest polluters, including General Motors and Chevron. With deforestation amounting to a fifth of the world’s emissions, planting and preserving trees are seen as key elements to offset pollution. We speak to Mark Schapiro of the Center for Investigative Reporting. After traveling to Brazil, Schapiro writes, “People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.” [includes rush transcript]

An ABC News investigation has exposed how one of the country’s largest blueberry growers uses child labor on its fields. Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company in South Haven, Michigan is at the center of this scandal. Wal-Mart and the Kroger supermarket chain were among Adkin’s high-profile customers that have now cut ties with the blueberry grower. We speak to ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross and Teresa Hendricks of Michigan Migrant Legal Aid. [includes rush transcript]

A five-month investigation by McClatchy Newspapers has revealed that Goldman Sachs made secret bets against the housing market while simultaneously selling off billions in soon-to-be worthless securities. In 2006 and 2007, the bank reportedly peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in US housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. We speak to McClatchy reporter Greg Gordon. [includes rush transcript]

Republicans have won the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, while New York’s billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg survived a stunningly close race against William Thompson. Bloomberg spent an estimated $100 million, making this the most expensive race in history outside the presidency. Meanwhile, Maine voters repealed a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed. [includes rush transcript]

Tomorrow will mark one year since President Obama’s historic election as the nation’s first African American president. A new documentary tracks Obama’s seemingly improbable road to the White House with an unprecedented look at his campaign. Filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sams began following Obama in May 2006, eight months before he announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. Their film is as much a look at the campaign behind the scenes as it is at the grassroots movement of supporters that propelled Obama to victory. [includes rush transcript]

The House is expected to overwhelmingly vote today to condemn a UN inquiry that found Israel committed scores of war crimes in its three-week assault on the Gaza Strip. Headed by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the inquiry also accused Hamas of war crimes and said both sides should investigate the allegations or face international prosecution. Over 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attack, a majority of them civilians. Nine Israelis were killed by Palestinians and another four by so-called friendly fire. The bipartisan, non-binding House measure calls the Goldstone inquiry “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” The vote comes one day before the United Nations General Assembly is expected to take up the inquiry’s findings. [includes rush transcript]

On Monday, a federal court of appeals dismissed Canadian citizen Maher Arar’s case against US officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that victims of extraordinary rendition cannot sue Washington for torture suffered overseas, because Congress has not authorized such lawsuits. In 2002, Syrian-born Maher Arar was held in New York on his way back to Canada from a family vacation in Tunisia. A subsequent Canadian public inquiry has shown Arar was held on erroneous advice from Canadian officials who accused him of ties to Islamic militants. US authorities then flew Arar to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year. Canadian authorities exonerated Arar in 2007, apologized for their role in his torture, and awarded him a multi-million-dollar settlement. [includes rush transcript]

Earlier this summer, Shon Meckfessel traveled with Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal from Damascus, Syria to Iraqi Kurdistan for a short vacation. Shon stayed behind at the hotel nursing a cold, while his three friends left for the hike. On the morning of July 31st, he set out to join them near a waterfall, when Shane telephoned him to say they had been detained. The three American hikers are now in Evin prison in Iran. Shon Meckfessel is sending a letter today to the Iranian president, urging him to release his friends and to consider that each of them has a “long and public record of contesting injustice in the world.” [includes rush transcript]

In a new article in The Atlantic, Shannon Brownlee examines how some flu experts are challenging the medical orthodoxy and arguing that for those most in need of protection, flu shots and antiviral drugs may provide little to none. So where does that leave us if a bad pandemic strikes? Shannon Brownlee is the author of the bestselling book Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer. [includes rush transcript]

Last month, when the a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on the derivatives market, Robert Johnson was the only non-industry expert invited to speak. The former economist at the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Budget Committee was invited just sixteen hours before the hearing. His testimony was cut short after five minutes by Congresswoman Melissa Bean, and the committee has since refused to post online his full testimony along with the statements of the other panelists. Robert Johnson comes on Democracy Now! to explain what he tried to tell Congress. [includes rush transcript]

We speak to Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. On Thursday, Grijalva said he was deeply disappointed at the healthcare bill unveiled by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He has pledged to fight for a floor vote on including a robust public option in the bill. [includes rush transcript]

One of the leading political and legal bloggers in the country, Glenn Greenwald, joins us to talk about about the war in Afghanistan, the Obama administration’s use of state secrets, the healthcare debate, the renewed military commissions at Guantanamo, and the coverage of it all by the corporate media. Greenwald is a constitutional law attorney who writes for Salon.com and is the author of three books. [includes rush transcript]

The Honduran coup regime and representatives of the ousted President Manuel Zelaya reached an agreement late Thursday that would pave the way for Congress to restore Zelaya to office and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. We go to the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa to speak with Andrés Conteris, who has been holed up at the embassy since Zelaya took refuge there last month. [includes rush transcript]

With the US economy snapping a record streak of four straight quarterly declines and expanding 3.5 percent in the third quarter, many economists are claiming the nation’s worst recession since World War II may now be over. We speak to Jonathan Tasini, author of the new book The Audacity of Greed: Free Markets, Corporate Thieves, and the Looting of America. Tasini is challenging Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary for the 2010 US Senate special election in New York. [includes rush transcript]

Russia has seen an alarming rise in the murders of journalists and activists speaking out about government abuses in the embattled North Caucasus region. We speak to Elena Milashina, a Russian investigative journalist who has just won the 2009 Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch. She was friends with both the activist and journalist Natalya Estemirova, who was killed in July, and the internationally renowned Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in October 2006. [includes rush transcript]

While much of the healthcare debate in Washington and the media has focused on the proposal to create a government-run insurance program, the legislation being considered includes many other provisions that could change how healthcare is delivered in this country. We host a roundtable with three guests who have been closely following the debate: Lois Uttley, co-founder of Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need; Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of Health Initiatives at Community Service Society of New York; and Dr. Oliver Fein, president of Physicians for a National Health Program. [includes rush transcript]

The healthcare debate on Capitol Hill is expected to intensify today with the unveiling of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s healthcare bill. The measure reportedly includes a government insurance option and an expansion of Medicaid but drops a proposal to include a public option that would establish reimbursement rates to providers based on Medicare rates. Meanwhile, in the Senate questions remain over whether Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has enough votes to pass the Senate version of the healthcare reform bill. [includes rush transcript]

Investigative reporter Jane Mayer of The New Yorker magazine revealed last week that the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan has risen dramatically under President Obama. During his first nine-and-a-half months in office, Obama authorized at least forty-one CIA missile strikes in Pakistan—a rate of approximately one bombing a week. We speak to one of the most high-profile critics of the US drone program: Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. Alston says the US government’s use of Predator drones may violate international law. [includes rush transcript]

The Local Community Radio Act of 2009 is on its way to a full House vote after sailing through the Energy and Commerce Committee with little opposition. The measure would repeal legislation which requires the FCC to protect full-power broadcasters from interference from Low Power FM stations being placed on third-adjacent channels. We speak to Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle, a co-sponsor of the bill; and Cory Fischer-Hoffman, campaign director of the Prometheus Radio Project. [includes rush transcript]

To talk more about Afghanistan, we are joined by Malalai Joya, one of Afghanistan’s leading democracy activists. In 2005, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Afghan parliament. She was suspended in 2007 for her denunciation of warlords and their cronies in government. She has just written her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out. [includes rush transcript]

At least six international United Nations workers were killed in Afghanistan today when a team of gunmen and bombers raided their private guest house in Kabul. About an hour later, a rocket struck the luxury Serena Hotel located near the presidential palace. The attacks come one day after eight US soldiers were killed, making October the deadliest month for the US in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. The New York Times meanwhile reports the debate in the White House is no longer over whether to send more troops, but over how many more will be needed. We go to Kabul to speak with investigative journalist Pratap Chatterjee. He was staying at the Serena Hotel last night when the hotel came under attack. [includes rush transcript]

As with suicides, the rate of sexual assaults within the US military now exceeds that of the general population. A Pentagon report earlier this year found one in three female service members are sexually assaulted at least once during their enlistment. Sixty-three percent of nearly 3,000 cases reported last year were rapes or aggravated assaults. Rape in the Ranks: The Enemy Within is a documentary that focuses on the cases of three female service members victimized by rape and other forms of sexual assault. We air excerpts of the film and speak to filmmaker Pascale Bourgaux. [includes rush transcript]

Gregg and Jannett Keesling are the parents of Chancellor Keesling, a US soldier who took his own life on June 19th of this year. Chancellor was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. During his first deployment, he suffered mental health issues so severe he was placed on suicide watch. After getting back to the United States, Chancellor had turned down a bonus offer to return to Iraq in the hopes he wouldn’t be redeployed. But he was called back in May. One month later, he took his own life. Since Chancellor’s death, Gregg and Jannett Keesling have yet to receive a letter of condolence from President Obama. After making inquiries, they discovered that this was not because of an oversight. Instead, it’s because of a longstanding US policy to deny presidential condolence letters to the families of soldiers who take their own lives. [includes rush transcript]

A controversial death row case is unfolding in Texas today. Twenty-eight-year-old Reginald Blanton is set to be executed tonight for the 2000 killing of Carlos Garza. Blanton was convicted of breaking into Garza’s apartment and shooting him in the head. But Blanton has maintained his innocence, and his lawyers have said the case has been tainted by prosecutors’ attempt to exclude African Americans from the jury and by the initial mistakes of a court-appointed defense attorney. The scheduled execution comes as the Texas capital punishment system is under increasing scrutiny. [includes rush transcript]

In Honduras, the conflict between the coup regime and supporters of the ousted president Manuel Zelaya remains at a standstill. Talks broke down last week after the coup regime refused to drop its objection to Zelaya’s return to office. Zelaya has accused the regime of trying to drag out negotiations until the presidential elections it plans to hold next month. Zelaya’s supporters are boycotting the elections, and the international community has refused to recognize them. The Canadian journalist and Al Jazeera English correspondent Avi Lewis recently traveled to Honduras for a rare look at the grassroots movement against the coup regime. This is an excerpt of his report, which aired on the Al Jazeera English program Fault Lines. [includes rush transcript]

When the American Bankers Association scheduled their annual meeting in Chicago for this week, they probably weren’t expecting the reception they’ve received. Instead of a quiet convention in a downtown hotel, the ABA has been greeted by a parallel gathering of thousands of people in what organizers call the “Showdown in Chicago.” Spearheaded by the group National People’s Action, organizers have tried to bring together a cross-section of Americans affected by the financial meltdown, including homeowners, renters, farmers, workers and retirees. The Showdown kicked off Sunday when protesters entered the lobby of the hotel where the ABA delegates are gathering. [includes rush transcript]

In Baghdad, the death toll from Sunday’s synchronized suicide car bombings has risen to 155. More than 500 people were also injured. It was the deadliest bombing in Iraq in two years. The blasts targeted the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Works and the Baghdad provincial government. Dozens of civil servants were among the dead. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the site of the bombings and blamed al-Qaeda and former remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime. He said the attacks would not affect the political process or parliamentary elections due in January. US troops have been called in to help with the investigation. [includes rush transcript]