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Kansas City is home to an existing and a new replacement nuclear weapons parts plant that have been and  will be responsible for 85% of the components of US nuclear weapons. The new plant is owned by the Kansas City Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA), described in a 2010 Missouri Court of Appeals decision as "a statutory agency that was created by a vote of the City Council of Kansas City, Missouri (“the City”) under section 100.320.1," and whose members are appointed by the Kansas City mayor. The plant will be operated by Honeywell for the National Nuclear Security Administration in a complicated leasing scheme, involving the General Services Administration and private developer Centerpoint Properties,  that was criticized by the GAO in a 2009 report Rachel MacNair is the Campaign Coordinator for KC Peace Planters, a group responsible for getting a measure on the ballot on April 2, 2013 in Kansas City, Missouri, that would preclude the city from engaging in any such nuclear weapons involvement in

On the day after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and the second inaugural of President Obama, Tell Somebody talked to Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford about his piece Don't You Dare Conflate MLK and Obama. In the second half of the show, we talk to Wayne Knox, president and CEO of Cold War Soldiers, advocates whose mission is "to help obtain fair compensation and treatment of workers and claimants impacted by the building, testing and maintenance of nuclear weapons. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio.  Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tel

William Black is a former federal bank regulator, current professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One - How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry. He appeared extensively in Michael Moore’s dcoumentary: “Capitalism: A Love Story.”  Professor Black recorded a conversation with Tell Somebody on Saturday January 12, 2013, shortly before the Treasury Department announced it would not be minting the much talked about trillion dollar platinum coin.  Black talks about how the platinum coin idea could have worked, why austerity is a bad idea, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew, and a little bit about the movie Blazing Saddles. His writings and those of some of his colleagues can be found at www.neweconomicperspectives.org.  This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio.  Click on the pod icon above or the .

Kansas City Move To Amend and other groups held a mock wedding of a corporate person and a human person in January 2012, marking the second anniversary of the infamous Citizens United v FEC decision..  The January 8, 2013 edition of Tell Somebody took a look back at the wedding as the third anniversary approaches.   This came after some thoughts about torture and the new film, Zero Dark Thirty. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsomebody.us   Twitter: @tellsomebodynow facebook: http://on.fb.me/T5WjVH 

Happy New Year.  On January 1, 2013 on Tell Somebody, a Kansas City attorney, former county prosecutor and Missouri judge Albert Riederer is remembered with a 2007 interview when he was running for mayor of Kansas City, MO. Then, a bit of a look back at 2012 on the show starting with an Occupy KC-sponsored New Orleans style funeral march for the social safety net. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsomebody.us   Twitter: @tellsomebodynow facebook: http://on.fb.me/T5WjVH 

On Christmas Day 2012, Tell Somebody revisited the Nativity and then wondered what it would have been like if border patrol agents had been on the scene during the flight into Egypt. It has been a while since the Collateral Murder video was released by Wikileaks, but with the Bradley Manning case proceeding, maybe it's worthy of a little more attention.  Tell Somebody contemplates the events in that video in relationship to the biblical story of the Good Samaritan. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsomebody.us  

Although it has a Community Advisory Panel (for window dressing?) for the severely contaminated Kansas City Bannister Federal Complex, the NNSA has a preferred planning partner, Centerpoint Properties, when it comes to communication and making decisions about what to do with the soon to be abandoned Kansas City nuclear weapons parts plant.  Centerpoint is the same corporation developing the new nuke plant in Kansas City.   In a November 30, 2012 posting to their website, the NNSA wrote: "In August 2012, the NNSA identified a preferred planning partner to discuss future reuse opportunities. Through discussions with the preferred planning partner, NNSA has determined that only land uses consistent with current zoning constraints are feasible.  This change eliminates the need to study options outside those zoning restrictions such as residential use. Therefore, NNSA has also decided to withdraw its earlier NOI published in January 2012." The December 18 edition of Tell Somebody includes audio from a public infor

On December 3, 2012, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern posted a link at his website to a piece about why he thinks Rice is not qualified to be Secretary of State.  Most of the mainstream media coverage has centered on Republican criticism of her handling of the Benghazi, Libya incident.  Former CIA analyst and presidential briefer Ray McGovern has some other reasons to criticise her, and he shared them on the December 11 edition of Tell Somebody.  This podcast edition includes about 15 minutes of additional audio that we didn't have  time for on the broadcast edition of the show. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any com

The December 4, 2012 edition of Tell Somebody  featured good news and bad news from the FCC.  The bad news? The FCC is apparently planning to end a rule preventing companies from owning a newspaper and radio and TV stations in the same city. This show aired part of a press conference put on by Free Press on November 28 with Wade Henderson of The Leadership Conference of Civil and Human Rights, the Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, Bernie Lunzer of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, Mee Moua of the Asian American Justice Center, Alex Nogales of the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Rashad Robinson of ColorofChange.org speaking in opposition to the FCC's plans to gut media ownership rules. The good news? After years of groundwork, on November 30, The FCC will held an Open Meeting in Washington, DC on "Creation of a Low Power Radio Service", aka LPFM.  This show aired part of that meeting. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of t

Josh Stearns is the Journalism and Public Media Campaign Director at Free Press, www.freepress.net.  Josh came on the November 27, 2012 edition of Tell Somebody to talk about the apparent plans of the Obama FCC under Julius Genachowski to push the same relaxation of media cross-ownership restrictions as Bush's FCC chair Keven Martin pushed in 2007. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsomebody.us  

On Friday, November 16, 2012, The New America Foundation, www.newamerica.net, hosted an event, Dark Money, Media, and the 2012 Campaign.  From the New America Foundation website for the event: "The first presidential campaign since the 2010 Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision resulted in the most expensive election season ever. Anonymous and unaccountable donors poured in unprecedented amounts of money. While new media, newspapers and radio collected some of this money, the lion’s share ended up in the bank accounts of television broadcast companies. For months the public was bombarded with a tsunami of ads from political campaigns, Super PACs and other shadowy groups—ads that in many cases were only loosely connected to the truth.  Aside from creating windfall profits for broadcasters in swing states, what impact did dark money have on democratic discourse in the 2012 election at the state and the national level? With so much money in the mix can media really fulfill its role to watchdog politics and s

The November 13, 2012 edition of Tell Somebody features author and cabdriver Richard Tripp, founder and director of Care of Poor People Inc (COPP Inc) about his upcoming Winter Survival Event to provide food and clothing to the homeless, and former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, currently Common Cause’s Senior Advisor for their Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, responds to a Los Angeles Times article about possible FCC plans to relax media cross-ownership restrictions. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsome

Tell Somebody caught up with Democracy Now host Amy Goodman on the road in Oregon ahead of her November 1 Kansas City visit and fundraiser for KKFI. and broadcast it on the October 30, 2012 edition of the show.  Goodman was on a 100 city book tour for The Silenced Majority - Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance and Hope with co-author Denis Moynihan. After that, we heard from Frances Fox Piven, the professor Glenn Beck loves to hate. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsomebody.us  

Common Cause President/CEO Bob Edgar returned to Tell Somebody to talk about a new report by Common Cause and Demos that examines laws regulating the activities of volunteer poll watchers and organized efforts to challenge the eligibility of voters in 10 key states.   Plus, we re-air a 2004 interview with former Senator George McGovern, who died October 21, 2012, at the age of 90.  McGovern talked about his then-new book, The Essential America - Our Founders and the Liberal Tradition, the Iraq war, the Palestine-Israeli conflict, and about his work as a roving ambassador on hunger for the United Nations. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast

The Stamp Mobile, a "crazy money marking contraption" on a cross-country trip in support of amending the US Constitution to overturn 'corporate personhood,' is making a stop in Kansas City.  Tell Somebody talked to the drivers, Ashley Sanders & Renae Widdison, on the October 16, 2012 edition of the show. Also, we hear from Honduran activist Tomas Gómez Membreño who is touring the Midwest, including a stop in Kansas City on October 22,  speaking on Unites States Involvement in Honduras and the Effects on Indigenous Peoples. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any proble

On the October 9, 2012 edition of Tell Somebody, Greg Palast returns to a pledge drive edition of the show to talk about his new book, Billionaires and Ballot Bandits - How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or questions about the show or any problems accessing the files, send an email to: mail@tellsomebody.us  

Revolutionary New York disc jockey Bob Fass is the subject of a new documentary - Radio Unnameable. Filmmakers Paul Lovelace & Jessica Wolfson and Bob Fass himself talk about it on this edition of  Tell Somebody. From the film's website: Legendary radio personality Bob Fass revolutionized late night FM radio by serving as a cultural hub for music, politics and audience participation for nearly 50 years. Long before today’s innovations in social media, Fass utilized the airwaves for mobilization encouraging luminaries and ordinary listeners to talk openly and take the program in surprising directions. Radio Unnameable is a visual and aural collage that pulls from Bob Fass’s immense archive of audio from his program, film, photographs, and video that has been sitting dormant until now. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the s

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley and retired diplomat and Army Col. Ann Wright were in Kansas City on Sunday, September 9, 2012 to speak against unmanned drone warfare and in support of protestors Ron Faust and Brian Terrell who went to trial the next day in Jefferson City for trespassing at Whiteman Air Force Base.  Terrell and Faust were convicted. The September 10, 2012 edition of Tell Somebody features a short interview with Ramsey Clark and audio from speeches at the Kansas City event. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody and may or may not reflect the edition of the show broadcast on the radio. Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any

On Thursday, August 30, 2012, at the same time as the Kansas City Council was voting, reluctantly, but decisively, to put a citizens initiative about future city involvement in nuclear weapons production boondoggles on the ballot, and in the wake of an announcement of Centerpoint Properties, developer of the new Kansas City nuclear weapons plant, as redeveloper of the old facility, the Bannister Federal Complex Community Advisory Panel (CAP) met to talk about what the Sierra Club's Scott Dye has called a 360 acre festering hellhole.  The CAP was established by Inter-agency Environmental Leadership Council (EPA and GSA et al) to be an "independent, community-oriented advisory panel whose members will individually provide input to the IELC about environmental and redevelopment issues. The long-term objective is that the Bannister Federal Complex would continue to be a viable economic asset to the community. The CAP will also act as a communication conduit and forum for stakeholders within the complex and surrou

Vocational Rehablilitation (VR), a division of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, contracts with a private nonprofit corporation, Community Employment Incorporated (CEI), to provide employment services for Missourians with disabilities.  Some former CEI employees and clients aren't happy with how CEI is operating, and are working with the Kansas City branch of IWW in hopes of improving things.  CEI and Vocational Rehabilitation personnel declined invitations to appear on the show, so on the August 28, 2012 edition of Tell Somebody we talked to an IWW representative, two former CEI employees, and a VR/CEI client. This page and the podcast are produced and maintained by Tell Somebody.   Click on the pod icon above or the .mp3 filename below to listen to the show, or right-click and choose "save target as" to save a copy of the audio file to your computer.  You can also subscribe to the podcast, for free, at the iTunes store or your podcast directory. If you have any comments or q