The Indictment
It's Saturday morning, October 4, 2025, 01:14, and I've updated this Web page with a bit about Jimmy Kimmel getting back on the air. Previously I'd updated the page with a link to the archive of the program. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ Here's one of the main topics we covered on this radio program. We did more than this one. I plan to get this Web page updated quite soon. It will probably be worth it for you to check back here for that update.
You can now listen to this program on the official WBAI Archive.
The next regular WBAI LSB meeting will be held on Wednesday September 10, 2025, at 7:00 PM. That meeting will be held on ZOOM, even though ZOOM compromises privacy and security.
Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday night of every month, subject to change by the LSB, so we have the following schedule:
These meetings are set to begin at 7:00 PM.
WBAI has a program schedule up on its Web site. The site has gotten many of the individual program pages together to provide links and such, so check it out.
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Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.
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WBAI is archiving the programs! WBAI has permanently switched to yet another new archive Web page! This one is more baffling than the previous one. For some time I was unable to post archive blurbs, then I could, and then I couldn't again. Now I can again and there are a whole bunch of archive blurbs up there now.
This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive. The archiving software appears to have been at least partially fixed. To get to the archive of this program you can use the usual method: you'll have to click on the drop-down menu, which says Display,
and find Back of the Book on that menu. We're pretty early in the list, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Once you find the program name click GO
and you'll see only this Back of the Book program. Management has fixed some problems that we'd been having with the archives.
For programs before March 23, 2019, we're all out of luck. The changes that took place once WBAI Management took control of the WBAI archives seems to have wiped out all access to anything before that date in March. You'll have to click on the same drop-down menu as above, which says Display,
and find Specify Date
, it's the second choice from the top. You are then given a little pop-up calendar and you can choose the date of the program there. Then click GO
and you'll see a list of programs that aired on that date. For those previous programs you can get the audio, but nothing else, since I can't post anything to those pages anymore. Good luck.
Since the former General Manager banned Sidney Smith from WBAI he's not alternating with us on the air. As of November 2020, Back of the Book airs weekly.
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On Thursday former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by the Justice Dept. And charged with a two-count indictment one charge is making a false statement to Congress and the other was obstructing a congressional proceeding. Reportedly there had been a third charge but apparently they couldn't get the grand just to indict on that one.
Now Comey is not a good guy. He may have been the difference in the 2016, election by releasing information about Hillary Rodham Clinton just days before the election. So he may have been responsible for electing Trump the first time! Comey was fired by Trump several months into his first term.
Comey was named by Trump last weekend in a social media post where it sure looks like Trump is telling Attorney General, and Trump lap dog, Pam Bondi to go after him. Trump wrote We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility,
referencing the fact that he had been indicted and impeached more than once. Trump finished his posting to Bondi saying, JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!
Yeah, if it were he'd have been in prison for a couple of years by now.
It's being reported that career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia who found insufficient evidence to support any charges against Comey. One U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia named Todd Gilbert resigned over the summer, only a month after being appointed to the job. It may be that he just couldn't compromise himself to bring this indictment. This is revenge. Last week chief prosecutor Erik Siebert, resigned instead of charging Comey and he had been getting pressured by trump to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James. Yeah, trump is a revenge queen.
Trump quickly nominated a new U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan who had been one of Trump's personal lawyers and she brought the case to the Grand Jury. Ms. Halligan lacks the federal prosecutorial experience that a prosecutor would need to really do this job.
This indictment seems to be flimsy at best. The judge they brought it to, Lindsey R. Vaala, saw that the grand jury hadn't indict Comey on one of the counts but voted to charge him on two others. I'm a little confused,
the judge said. This has never happened before.
The judge was amazed at how slim the entire thing was. After the indictment Bondi posted, No one is above the law,
has she not been paying attention? The right-wing Supreme Court has said that the president is above the law.
During the 2024, election Comey had warned that a second Trump presidency posed A danger to all Americans.
Comey issued a statement saying, We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, said, This kind of interference is a dangerous abuse of power,
he said. Our system depends on prosecutors making decisions based on evidence and the law, not on the personal grudges of a politician determined to settle scores.
The F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, posted on social media that the indictment would not be the administration's only one against, previous corrupt leadership and their enablers.
He added: Everyone, especially those in positions of power, will be held to account - no matter their perch.
Comey said that he was not afraid of the indictment, that he was innocent and he said, Let's have a trial.
I think he sees that they have a very weak case against him.
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Jimmy Kimmel got back on the air this past Tuesday. Disney and ABC got so much flak from the general public that they caved. Lots of people were cancelling subscriptions to Disney streaming services and bailing on vacations to DisneyLand. So on his return program Kimmel did not gloat. He even said that Kirk's widow had touched him by saying that she forgave the killer. I do wonder if what she said was heart felt or just performative.
And as we were preparing this program we got word that Nexstar and Sinclair had caved! They will resume airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! Next week. It is very important that the right-wing in general and Trump's MAGA-bullies in particular, did not prevail in this case. And it also shows that the old rule where no one could own more than five TV stations was a good rule. These two companies that own so many TV stations that they have too much power over what we can watch.
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The Web page for last week's program is finished.•
There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI, even though the gag rule was lifted in 2002. However, there is the Internet! There are mailing lists which you can subscribe to and Web based message boards devoted to WBAI and Pacifica issues. Many controversial WBAI/Pacifica issues are discussed on these lists.
One open list that no longer exists was the WBAI-specific Goodlight
Web based message board. It was sometimes referred to on Back of the Book as the bleepin' blue board,
owing to the blue background that was used on its Web pages. This one had many people posting anonymously and there was also an ancillary WBAI people
board that was just totally out of hand.
In June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I was the moderator on it for its last seven years, until it got too expensive.
Sometimes we used to have live interaction with people posting on the Goodlight Board
during the program.
Our very own Uncle Sidney Smith, whose program Saturday Morning With the Radio On used to alternate with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.
There used to be a number of mailing lists related to Pacifica and WBAI. Unfortunately, they were all located on Yahoo! Groups. When Yahoo! Groups was totally shut down in December 2020, all of those mailing lists ceased to exist. One year earlier their file sections and archives of E-mails, had been excised leaving only the ability to send E-mails back and forth among the members. Now it's all gone. Older Back of the Book program Web pages tell a little more about those lists.
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