NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

          FRESH AIR To celebrate, our producers have picked memorable moments from the past 20 years that they want to play back for you. Today’s show includes classic excerpts from interviews with Dexter Filkins, a reporter embedded with Marines in Iraq; actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who created the comic Kazakh Borat; undercover cop-turned-rapper Eric Davis; and “cutman” FX Toole, whose memories of life in the ring were the basis for the movie Million-Dollar Baby. RADIO TIMES WITH MARTY MOSS-COANE In response to Paul Wolfowitz’s resignation as president of the World Bank, we discuss his tumultuous two-year […]

FIGHT CITY HALL: Welcome To The Machine

Netroots Democrats in Philadelphia are locked in a fierce fight for control of the city’s Democratic organization, though their motivations have as much to do with good governance as winning elections. Chris Bowers is a Philadelphia activist and professional blogger for MyDD.com (as in Direct Democracy), a national netroots site. A former union organizer whose first foray into partisan politics was volunteering for Dean in 2004, Bowers says he got involved locally because “no one from the Democratic Party had ever contacted me about any election in the nearly seven years I had lived [here].” And he was fed up. […]

FEDS: Ex-Seaport Museum Prez Pirated $1.5 Million

PHILADELPHIA — The former president of the Independence Seaport Museum was charged with mail fraud and tax evasion after scamming the struggling institution out of more than $1.5 million, federal authorities said Monday. John S. Carter, 57, of Osterville, Mass., submitted false invoices to fund home improvements and other personal expenses, including jewelry, electronics, clothing and a pair of rare historical artifacts, authorities said. Carter also kept the proceeds from the sale of a rare boat that had been donated to the museum, authorities said. “The defendant used the museum’s funds as his personal piggy bank,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan said. […]

GAMBLOR: Nutter Talks Harm Reduction

“I am not a fan of gaming as an economic development tool. It certainly will create jobs … but I believe there are alternatives.” The candidate said he is against the sites selected for the two Philadelphia casinos. His role will be to insure the city is moving in the way to be certain it can impose the greatest restriction possible over the possible negatives from the casinos — traffic congestion, curb cuts, air quality, gambling addiction, and increases in crime to name a few. “Residents need to be protected. We have to be sure the process does not negatively […]

KILLADELPHIA: Cops Bypass Gag Order Of Stop Snitchin’ By Literally Making A Federal Case Out Of It

BY SIMONE WECHSELBAUM OF THE DAILY NEWS In the age of Stop Snitchin’, Philadelphia’s embattled law-enforcement community has found that federal court is the path to justice by circumventing tight-lipped thugs and wary witnesses who jam the wheels of the criminal-justice system.The feds only need one of three things to build a case — a convicted felon caught with a gun or bullets; an individual apprehended with both a gun and a sizable amount of drugs; a person arrested for armed robbery in a store selling products made in another state and/or transported across state borders. “When we have a felon […]

US ATTORNEY SCANDAL: Department Of Justice’s Civil Rights Division Actively Suppressed Black Vote For GOP

Justice Department civil rights lawyer Hans von Spakovsky [NOT pictured] steered the agency toward voting rights policies not seen before, pushing to curb minor instances of election fraud by imposing sweeping restrictions that would make it harder, not easier, for Democratic-leaning poor and minority voters to cast ballots. In interviews, current and former federal officials and civil rights leaders told McClatchy Newspapers that von Spakovsky: -Sped approval of tougher voter ID laws in Georgia and Arizona in 2005, joining decisions to override career lawyers who believed that Georgia’s law would restrict voting by poor blacks and who felt that more […]

GUNCRAZY: Upper Darby Cops Sold Seized Guns Back To Gun Shops Who Then Sold Them To Cop Killers

BY MARK FAZLOLLAH & JOHN SHIFFMAN INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Hundreds of guns seized by Upper Darby police are back in circulation, many after police supplied them to two of the region’s most notorious gun shops, The Inquirer has learned. These guns included illegal sawed-off shotguns and assault rifles. Just last month, special-education students found one of Upper Darby’s confiscated guns as they collected litter near their school. One of the dealers who sold Upper Darby’s weapons is now in prison for selling guns to felons. “I don’t care if you kill a cop,” he told an undercover federal agent wearing […]