welcome to the ilona show where we get the real headlines with none of them or see it coming live in washington d.c. now it's a night we're going to talk about the national day of reason it's created to counter the national day of prayer which is also today so we're going to see what the non-theist movement in america really wants then ron paul is still in the race and he's rocking of delegates not enough to beat romney but maybe enough to cause some real trouble at the republican national convention so we're going to talk about what exactly he could do to stir it up and then be he said she said between google and f.c.c. continues so who's really responsible for trying to keep the whole story from the

public going to get out of the bottom of that and we'll have all of that morphy tonight including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look what the mainstream media decided to miss. the night i would like to go back to a horrible story that we spoke about last night. well talk about a nightmare a college kid smokes pot at a friend's house falls asleep and wakes up to a raid by federal agents was supposed to be released but agents put the twenty four year old in a holding room and then forgot about him handcuffed and alone inside a small window liz holding cell no food no water no communication seemingly forgotten and for four and a half days this lasted disturbing mistake made by the d.a. who screamed been pounding on the walls no response he could hear people coming and going but nobody came to him for daniel chong sure vive his horrifying ordeal

inside a five by ten holding cell similar to this one meant drinking his own urine drank his own urine hallucinated and at one point he tried to kill himself with the lenses that he did shoot out of his eyeglasses on day five agents finally opened his cell door suffering from signs of kidney failure the d.n.a. they admit they lost him and they're investigating it he's suing and the da is apologizing is attorney you might imagine meg and they are going to file a lawsuit in federal court. nearly five days in a cell handcuffed no food or water and chong is now suing the d.a. for what happened to him for twenty million dollars now the lawsuit says that his treatment constitutes torture under both international and domestic law and i couldn't agree more what this young man went through at the hands of the d.a. is horrible and it needs to be investigated and people need to be held accountable

for it and honestly i believe the chong will get his justice and that he will get lots of money but the reason that i really bring this up today it's a juxtapose that with another torture case now he's talking about was a podium many times before on this show the american citizen who was held in isolation at a military brig for more than three years for two of those years he wasn't even charged and while there pretty a claim that he was subjected to death threats. given psychotropic drugs shackled for hours at a time denied contact with family or a lawyer for twenty one months and refused medical care for potentially life threatening conditions now i would say that sounds like torture to and but dia is trying to sue over his treatment for being tortured on u.s. soil by his own government and we've told you about the case that he's brought against donald rumsfeld six other bush administration officials but yesterday a federal judge ruled on a case against one official in particular and that would be john yoo author of the now notorious torture memos the memos that concluded that techniques like prolonged

sleep deprivation binding in stress positions and waterboarding did not amount to torture so that wild stretches been refuted not only by this administration but human rights organizations legal scholars and activists but this judge that ruled in the ninth circuit court of appeals gave you an out by claiming that the notion of the treatment that the deal was subjected to was torture was not clearly established in two thousand and one to two thousand and three even now the court said it remains murky whether an enemy combatant detainee may be subjected to conditions of confinement and methods of interrogation that would be unconstitutional if applied in the ordinary prison and criminal settings and that's perhaps the most disturbing thing about it even if you didn't legally deserve to be personally held responsible for his treatment i think the ben wizner the a.c.l.u. attorney made a very good point in response to this ruling that the court missed an opportunity to make sure that nothing like this would ever happen again to declare once and for all of the methods used against the dia were clearly unconstitutional but once

again we see the courts choosing not to go against the excuse of the government the ones that they give with this blanket of national security when they're supposed to actually be upholding the law so i just wonder are they too scared to say this is wrong that you can't treat people this way especially not u.s. citizens i noticed. no coverage of that ruling anywhere in the mainstream media though that they're going to focus on the horrible story of the u.c.s.d. student and what he was put through and rightly so the da deserves to be called out but they pick and choose they haven't spoken about the d.a.'s case for the most part and they won't in the future because that they choose to miss. well today is the national day of prayer an annual observance designated by

congress where the people of the united states may turn to god in prayer and meditation at churches in groups and as individuals of the day that earth quite a few people out there who feel that government endorse holidays such as this violates the idea of the separation of church and state and so today has also been marked as the national day of reason started in two thousand and three as a secular response and last week representative pete stark from california explained the day is one that celebrates the application of reason and the positive impact it has had on humanity he also called it an opportunity to really of farm the constitutional separation of religion and government so clearly there is a debate out there but do we need either a day of prayer or reason here of gaza with me is shaun fairclough author of the book attack of the theocrats how the religious right harms us all and what we can do about it he's also the director of strategy and policy at the richard dawkins foundation for reason and science thanks so much for joining us tonight great to be

here why don't you just start by telling me what the national day of reason means for you i why do we have a national day of reason well i think that every day should be a national day of reason really that's what jefferson and madison intended however we've gotten away from that and recently really recently in the scope of american history it was billy graham who initiated this concept back to the one nine hundred fifty s. this is the billy graham who talked to his close friend richard nixon about what the jews are doing to this country who said during the height of the vietnam war that we're going to fire upon the earth and just recently opposed equal treatment for gay people in his home state of north carolina we take a more compassionate view a more caring view and that's what the national day of reason is really about is the special. i would emphasize that what i write about my book is the many many ways in american law today where real people are harmed religious and nonreligious by religious bias in american law at the federal and state level well i mean let's let's expand upon that a little bit what do you mean by the way people are harmed we've been doing

a lot of coverage on this show on a lot of the legislation that's being passed in states across the country which i find incredibly harmful if you want to talk about restricting access to women when it comes to their reproductive rights right when it comes to the health services that they can actually access but but that's just one thing one health sure i write a ten point vision of a secular american to big pillars that most people are probably aware by now i hope they are is the suppression of women's rights in the suppression of equal rights for gay people but in my book i read about eight more areas including children's law tax law len use planning and in each case i give specific examples where real people are hurt and that's critical because a lot of times i think secular americans talk about the symbolic and issues you know that the manger in the town square which i happen to oppose when it's on public land but i think more important that is say if a little child is hurt because in some religious child cares and some states they don't even regulate the child care because it's religious while they regulate the

secular and there's been neglect and even cases of deaths that to me is horrific that you shouldn't have that american law and i think madison would be appalled or it's like you know we've also covered some of the bowling anti-black legislation that's been passed where they also make religious exemptions to these laws and say that if you just feel so morally inclined that you have to do this or say this to somebody then that i guess it's ok think about it they're saying let me bully you because you happen to agree with bill gates and lack religion or you happen to agree with warren buffett and lack religion what a hideous and immoral concept but do you think that the atheist movement itself can be that you guys can be kind of bullies sometimes and we have the reason rally right was here in washington. d.c. a couple of months ago and this was the largest gathering of humanists atheists right non-secular people that we've ever seen and richard dawkins when he was there actually told people that they should ridicule those who are religious no he talked about ridiculing some ideas and i would ask that we consider that when i write my

book as he has years ago about children being labelled what happens when a child girl is in a fundamentalist school and she is taught today in two thousand and twelve that she shall be subordinate and even perhaps more ominous what about good hearted boys who are taught that the treat girls as being subordinate because of what the bible says i'd say that's the real moral issue that's the kind of thing i write about my book and that's what the richard dawkins foundation works on behalf of caring and compassion how do you see that applied realistically in terms of laws right i know that there are actions being held today across the country for a national reason they also know that there is some training going on as to how to lobby for some of these secular causes you used to do it yourself but so when you go to a politician and tell them i need you to represent me how do they actually you know you are getting them a piece of let you know going to give them a piece of legislation like an anti-abortion i'm sure you'll be shocked by what i'm

going to conclude with here but i mean i served ten years in elective office myself i lobbied two years at the state level two years at the federal level have a lot of experience with political organizing you need to make an articulate case on behalf of secularism every single one of the ten point vision issues that i talk about my book i can give specific injustices where people are hurt not just abstractions where people are hurt but i got to tell you what's more important than that numbers numbers of dollars and numbers of people and what i'm working with all of the secular groups in every single state of the union is to say let's organize and build numbers you know the religious right in one thousand nine hundred eighty they were no where they organized i give him credit for that now it's time for us to organize because we are much more than the percent. you know this now and we have to drive to help others through a sense of compassion and political organizing because lobbying only works when you have the grassroots. and even numbers in terms of money lobbying only where if you have a lot of money and then you need the numbers but can you actually deliver the numbers

in terms of a voting block right if you even look at the g.o.p. candidates right now and you look at the way or not even the g.o.p. candidates but perhaps some of the possible vice presidential. nominees right or names that are floating out there if you want to talk about paul ryan for example he's had to walk back a couple statements because he has to please the catholic league and so republican politicians are really scared of the religious right because they know that these people are serious they mean that they come out and vote and they can influence an election can atheists really do that well i would expand that first of all there are people who identify as agnostic as humanists or just semicircular mary and i don't really want to categorize that. in my hometown when i was in elective office for barack obama i remember just a few short years before that people saying to me yeah you'll never elect a black person president states will not happen in our lifetime and i said well if it's the right community you can and i would say similarly if you have a compassionate approach to the issues if you talk about how people are harmed and

how we're going to address it then yes you can and you know secular americans are depending on how you slice it about the same percentage of the population as african-americans in the last i checked barack obama has a pretty decent office in washington d.c. right now so it can be done all right and there also there are some census of american religion figures that were released and so you really do realize that it is still a religious society in the sense that people claim that their religious there is probably fifty five percent of americans that attend services with enough regularity to be counted most surveys estimate that roughly eighty five percent of americans profess a religious faith even though they might not attend services i mean it is interesting but because there are. are so many that if you look at the surveys there's only one demographic group that's grown in every single state of the union over the last twenty years secular americans furthermore that among young people it's exponentially more than just to say that it's growing among folks who are sixty five and older but when you go to thirty and under that's where we're really

growing i believe that you know i mean you know i'm part of that generation that's definitely what i see amongst people that are my age so i want to ask you one last thing that we've seen for the you know rogers here's a woman who was a republican lobbyist and she was just announced the new executive director of the secular coalition for america which is the biggest lobbyist group right from the non-theists and that's kind of weird she's she's a republican is this a new thing at the republican party is going to start trying since like you said young people are heading in that direction well i quote in my book barry goldwater who was mr conservative mr republican quote him as saying i have no respect for the religious right which means that barry goldwater mr conservative would have probably had zero chance in a primary today even though he's the vanguard of so-called conservatism but for me what really matters is on this issue that we can bring people together we can bring conservative people together progressive people together libertarian people together and say we've had enough because i think that's the majority view and i

would include a lot of religious people in this say listen i don't want the religious right affecting my bedroom and demonstrate in my book lots of other areas it's huge well when you use a word like reason and it just seems you know how can you get things out of my friend thank you so much i think you. are taking a quick break but up next we've got a tool time that is so crazy we couldn't wait to share and a libertarian party convention is happening in las vegas right now but could there be libertarians on the ballot. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

there hasn't been a thing yet on t.v. . it is to get the maximum political impact. before source material is worth hopes keep journalism honest we. we want to present. something else.

all right it's time for tonight's full time award and tonight we're giving it to a state lawmaker and his wife to brun setters live in north carolina state engaged

in a heated same sex marriage argument over amendment one that was amended created by republican lawmaker peter brown's debtor would modify the state's constitution to park lane the marriage between man and a woman is the only legalized recog legally recognized union in the state and was broadly worded language me that any other kind of domestic partnership would not be recognized in north carolina so any other type of relationship will be prevented from receiving benefits and protections by the state now the measure is going to make its way onto the ballot on eight more north carolina that will decide if they want to amend their state constitution to this bigoted definition of marriage but thankfully it seems that a growing number of people are opposed to amendment one. today zero and university poll findings thirty eight percent of those asked supporting full rights for same sex couples and twenty nine percent supporting civil unions both of those numbers

trending up from polls just a few months ago. and this isn't just a divisive issue in the state has received nation wide attention even obama said that he's against it let's get back to the runners here because after all peter's face is the one associated with the cement so earlier this week front that his wife jodi she was outside of an early voting location where she was overheard making some very interesting comments about him and what according to other poll workers jody was talking to voters outside and she gave a rather strange reason for why we need to stop same sex marriage jodi with allegedly overheard saying quote the reason my husband wrote amendment one was because the caucasian race is diminishing and we need to reproduce now when winston salem freelance journalist chad nance heard about this he confronted this is branstad herself and she actually seemed a little bit frustrated a little flustered excuse me when nance tried to determine if she actually use the diminishing white race as a reason to be can stick

a marriage so we watched the entire ten minute conversation between nancy and brown's daughter but here's a very short version where she admits that she did actually make a comment with caucasians and say anything that called haitians i promise. i'm this woman i want you to clear it up if you could what you said about caucasians that way it clears up with your misconception but context bottles eons ago. right now i'm. sorry but it was a senator said about caucasians right now i think i'm a middle class it's. my. now if you want to see the entire conversation it's easily available online how convenient the sun melted jodi's brain and she certainly can't remember what was said either that or she doesn't want to get caught on camera arguing that caucasians need to be the dominant race and therefore reproduce more and therefore gayness can't be allowed now several members of the present reached out to jodi to clarify her comments but she hasn't

responded perhaps you have to wait for her heat stroke to subside before she can have a clear head and i'm sorry but this blatant attempt to pull race into the gay marriage debate is not only absurd it's irresponsible like she couldn't think of anything else hateful to say about gay people so she decided to throw in the end of the white race and see if she can make that one stick and i'm also just confused about exactly how exactly gay marriage would destroy the way it race i mean i really don't get it if she's saying that only not white people are gay and she's saying that white people will stop procreating if you allow gay marriage because there are so many gay white people it does not make any sense to me it's plain and simple the bronze tatars seem like a team of hateful people you have the husband spearheading the effort to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage and then you have his wife outside poles spreading fear about the end of the white race oh the whore so far voting in favor of the anti-gay marriage of men and promoting their message by explaining it as a move to protect the white race peter and jodie branstetter are tonight's two all time winners. now with newt gingrich finally dropping out of the presidential race

yesterday does look like despite the lack of enthusiasm among the g.o.p. for mitt romney he will be the nominee but ron paul is still in this race and he could be able to stir up some trouble at the national convention this is thanks to a strategy of racking up delegates at stake conventions by taking over state parties and learning how to take advantage of what the washington post this week called arcane rules now so far paul's delegates in states like alaska iowa louisiana minnesota colorado and rhode island well it's pretty obvious the paul will not be able to beat romney by the the numbers. strategy might be getting the establishment g.o.p. here's a little hit nevada's g.o.p. chairman has already received a strongly worded letter from the r. and c. is chief counsel ahead of the state's convention that's going to be held this weekend so what could ron paul actually achieve with these delegates well joining me to discuss it is gary quinn radio host and author of the left is more blog for

the boston globe gary want to thank you so much for joining us tonight and first started as you know let's let's start with a couple numbers how many delegates does ron paul actually have how many do you think he really could get total. i think that's really difficult to tell right now due to the way they are everybody counts delegates it tends to vary i really don't think anyone's going to have a true accurate count of how many delegates want all has until we go down to tampa the election takes place can you tell me what some of the tricks are the ron paul supporters are using right like i said the washington post described these as arcane rules so there must have been a lot of research put into this to really dig a way to to get more delegates and more attention for ron paul well every state has a different method for selecting delegates to the republican national convention so one of the things that the ron paul campaign did was they jugs through many many

manuals aren't walls they went deep into the weeds and figured out the places where they thought they could elect people and focus their resources there in some cases too like in massachusetts where mining and state were pocky be didn't really invest a lot of resources because of course themselves organized and went after delegates even though technically they won't be able to vote for ron paul the still active a number of people that are ron paul supporters but they still do a stipulation and party rules after vote for mitt romney. also if that's the case and yet there are people that are being kind of going to be forced to vote for mitt romney right when it comes to the national convention they get their ron paul supporters what ron paul actually achieve when when the convention comes you know is he just going to have a larger speaking platform might he be able to influence some of the other rules get a little more power excuse me power within the party. well i certainly think one of

the things that the paul campaign issue amy for now use a speaking slot for a prime time speech you slot not just date you know midday slot where there's but i mentioned also half empty they're looking for something i think that would put ron paul on during primetime television one of the major networks if that if that doesn't fall short they're definitely looking to work on having him put ron paul supporters in put on the back of the party platform but at the end of the day i think you know the party platform is a relatively new documents in modern american politics it's written that everybody just forgets about it party nominees rarely hear to what is written in certain party documents do you think that this is starting to get under the skin perhaps not only the romney campaign but just aren't seeing and general right what about this letter that was written to to nevada when do you think that ron paul is bothering them at this point. there was

a lot of talk during the during the campaign that there was this alliance between ron paul and mitt romney is that ron paul was not attacking mitt romney as much in the. in the debates that he was not really going after him in romney was really partnered with ron paul you there are also pieces written about how they were comfortable and cosy on the campaign trail that their wives get along well they got along well together i think a lot of that though had to do with the fact that these were the only two guys that were running to get as far as upset in our party people you're going to vary from state to state right you there's definitely going to be some concern about what's going to happen with ron paul folks i think at the national convention among. republicans sure. i guess we'll have to wait and see if any any more statements come out or any more letters or written but i know they are also in las vegas right now where the libertarian convention is being held so tell us a little bit more about that what it was like. well i mean i'm here covering the

libertarian party convention for a reason magazine and the it's there it's really going to come down to a theater race between gary johnson the former two term governor of new mexico and a gentleman he writes the rights was the campaign manager for mary brewer who ran in two thousand and eight if you recall mary rouer narrowly lost so bob barr on the six ballot voting in two thousand and eight so there's also a lot of you know what occurs a lot of would return conventions which tends to be a never ending battle for. surety of what the party should do should be to what should be an educational force and spread ideas of liberty or should be liberty in the or terrorism or should be focused on electing people should be focused on getting actually electing libertarian party members to office and that's taking place right now in a fight for a number of seats on the libertarian executive committee as you know is there a real sense that the libertarian party whoever it like you said is

a battle right it's not necessarily going to have a governor gary johnson but is there a sense that they might actually affect the general election in november make a. make a dent for one party or the other either hurt the democrats or the republicans. i think i think there is definitely a war optimistic sense among the people here the people particularly the people that gary johnson can i think there are there is a real strong sense that he could potentially crack five percent and what that would mean not only would you play an impact a role in shaping the rich race in the national discussion we would also be entitled to several multi multimillion dollars tens of millions of dollars in federal campaign finance federal campaign finance money that would be available to to i hammer whoever runs in two thousand and sixteen but the libertarians here are the most i've talked to in almost every delegate i've talked to is a chance to be a bit back in gary johnson i haven't met or their underside of retorts johnson so.

there are people here are extremely optimistic about it gary johnson. but do you think that they're willing to you know to do all that even if it might tip the scales towards president obama and given their reelection. if you ask most libertarians particularly people in the libertarian party to really say that and so you really want you know a little bit long lines of that there is really no difference between barack obama in and and mitt romney that they're both generally the terrible candidates who would be terrible presidents they also rules that social in law all right i think we may have. there is something. i care where we're having some sound issues and for if they are losing it we also have to had a break so i want to thank you for joining us tonight was a pleasure thanks for having me on. ok time for the break but coming up next show intel play out of the chosen one of your comments.