Laura Flanders is the host of "GRIT TV" the new, news and culture discussion program aired daily on Free Speech TV (Dish Network ch. 9415) and online at the popular blog site Firedoglake.com. Flanders also hosts RadioNation, on Air America Radio, the weekly radio program of the Nation Magazine. She is the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics Back from the Politiicans (The Penguin Press, 2007) and the New York Times bestseller BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species (Verso, 2004), an expose of women in George W. Bush's Cabinet. Flanders was founding director of the Women's Desk at the media watch group, FAIR and for more than ten years she produced and hosted CounterSpin, Fair's radio program. For more information and to contribute video to GRIT TV go to www.grittv.org.

Blog Entries by Laura Flanders

The F Word: Death Penalty Supporters Concede Defeat

Posted January 7, 2010 | 10:59 AM (EST)


You know here at GRITtv we try to cast light on good news when we get a chance. In that spirit...

We saw a lot of bad death penalty-related news last year--the probable execution of innocent men in Texas, the attacks by a prosecutor on the Medill...

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Heat Rises: Dubai's Tower of Debt

Posted January 6, 2010 | 07:53 AM (EST)


New year, new symbol? Dubai's new tower fits. The $1.5 billion building unveiled in downtown Dubai Monday is the world's new tallest tower. More than half a mile high, more than two Empire State buildings tall, the Dubai tower boasts 169 stories, the world's highest swimming pool, the world's highest...

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The F Word: Holiday Spirit?

Posted December 23, 2009 | 04:42 PM (EST)


It's that familiar season, full of quaint old false beliefs. Like that crazy Santa Claus notion there's such a thing as just desserts. Who's been naughty and who's been nice? It's pretty clear in the world of global politics, but there's no relation between behavior and the consequences. In fact,...

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Who You Callin' Moderate?

2 Comments | Posted December 22, 2009 | 10:35 AM (EST)


The Senate held a historic vote on health care reform Sunday night at 1 AM. Splitting exactly along party lines--that is, if you call Joe Lieberman a Democrat--the health care bill made it through a cloture vote and is one step away from final passage and the conference committee.

To...

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What To Do with 1200 Pounds of Bull

Posted March 5, 2009 | 09:40 AM (EST)


You can learn a lot from obituaries -- and recently there have been some great ones.

In February, it was Conchita CintrĂ³n, a celebrated female bullfighter.

CintrĂ³n, who retired from bullfighting after having killed as many as 750 bulls in the ring, died in...

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Reconstruction Now!

Posted February 11, 2009 | 12:09 PM (EST)


President Barack Obama ended his first prime time press conference on the "I" word.

"When I hear people just saying we don't need to do anything...then what I get a sense of is that there is some ideological blockage there that needs to be cleared...

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LIVE GRITtv Collaborative Webcast 9-11 am PT

Posted November 4, 2008 | 10:31 AM (EST)


GRITtv, The Nation, Alternet, FireDogLake, Afro-Netizen, Air America, Brave New Films and the Media Consortium are collaborating on a live program, streaming online, today from 12 (noon) to 2 pm eastern.

Join LAURA FLANDERS, PHIL DONAHUE, JANE HAMSHER, RICHARD KIM, VICTOR NAVASKY, CENK UYGAR, MARK GREEN,...

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Protecting The Vote

Posted September 30, 2008 | 01:45 PM (EST)


Voter registration deadlines are just over a week away in many states. Polls open in just over a month. In an election that could well be decided by new voters, voter registration efforts are in overdrive. But signing people up might be the easy part: after that, there's voting. As...

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An Economic Coup?

Posted September 22, 2008 | 10:30 PM (EST)


A threatened elite seeks to consolidate control and tighten its grip on a nation's resources ...

You could be forgiven for thinking I'm describing Bolivia, where conflict between landowners and backers of the democratically elected president Evo Morales claimed 30 lives so far this month, but I'm not. Reading...

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Listen to the Now Sayers - Live Stream From Denver at 3 pm Pacific.

Posted August 24, 2008 | 12:41 PM (EST)


It's 6 am in Denver and the sky's beginning to light up. An anti-war march starts in a few hours. The hip-hoppers from yesterday's Rock the Bells show are probably just getting to sleep. In the most expensive hotels, I imagine, some are sharpening their knives and getting ready to...

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The New York Times finds Heroes in Tbilisi: in Baghdad, only Terrorists.

Posted August 13, 2008 | 08:54 PM (EST)


The New York Times ran a feature August 12, on Georgian civilians who've joined the fight against the Russian invasion of that former Soviet republic. The story, by Nicholas Kulish and Michael Schwirtz is full of empathy and heart.

Nika Kharadze and Giorgi Monasalidze went to war last week,...

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Nuclear power? Racial Power? Give it up!

Posted August 6, 2008 | 04:06 PM (EST)


It's the anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima - which makes it a day to consider power and vulnerability. Johnathan Schell writing in Yes Magazine reflects that, "During the Cold War, the principal objection in the United States to a nuclear-weapon-free world was that you could not...

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Vanity Fair Misses the Point: It's not McCain's Physique -- It's his Politics!

Posted July 23, 2008 | 03:04 PM (EST)


Vanity Fair has released a cartoon cover online in response to the New Yorker's swipe at the media coverage of the Obamas. The fake Vanity Fair cover shows John McCain, in a walker with a bandaged head and Cindy with a bundle of pills giving her hubby a fist-jab....

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The New Yorker vs. The Media Channel on GRITtv.org

Posted July 15, 2008 | 06:49 PM (EST)


Information or Inflammation? Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker and Danny Schechter of Media Channel.org went at it on GRITtv with Laura Flanders, Monday. Watch the clip:

Watch the full interview on GRITtv.org

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No Bail-Out, No Bail! The Mortgage Melt-Down as seen from MIAMI

Posted July 14, 2008 | 08:01 PM (EST)


As the Bush administration unveiled a publicly-financed plan to "save" mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, local residents at a town hall forum in Miami were calling for criminal prosecutions of the loan-shark mortgage brokers and investment firms that profited from poor people's housing despair.

It...

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The F Word: Homes not Hearings

Posted July 10, 2008 | 07:04 PM (EST)


Democrats and Republicans played out a partisan fight Wednesday over who is to blame for housing hurricane victims in toxic trailers.

Over one million people were displaced after hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Thousands were sent to live in emergency travel trailers that had poisonous levels of formaldehyde. Prolonged exposure...

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The F Word: Celebration in Colombia? Not so Fast

Posted July 3, 2008 | 04:37 PM (EST)


It reads like a Hollywood script -- Colombian commandos descend into the jungle and exit with 15 hostages, including a former Colombian presidential candidate and three American Pentagon contractors who'd been held by anti-government guerrillas. The hostages had been held for six long years. What a long time and what...

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The F Word: No Way To Woo a Woman

Posted July 3, 2008 | 09:30 AM (EST)


The rush is on to woo women voters and the politicians and the pundits think they know the trick. Everybody from DNC chair Howard Dean to conservative pundit William Kristol is talking about sexism and why it matters. But women voters aren't stupid. If there was more than...

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The F Word: No Solar and No Clean-up

Posted July 1, 2008 | 07:02 PM (EST)


So much for the Government's much touted commitment to alternative energy. The New York Times reports that the Bush administration has placed a nearly two-year moratorium on the construction of new solar energy projects on public land. While the amount of oil drilling and gas drilling on public land...

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The F Word: Shelling Out for Shell

Posted June 20, 2008 | 10:41 AM (EST)


Free trade... Free oil contracts... There it is again, that cute word "free."

Of 46 international oil companies, including firms from China, India and Russia that had their eye on the first major oil deals in post-Saddam Iraq, guess who got the gig? Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Total and BP!

The western...

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