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Democracy Now!
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8:00-8:01 Billboard:
Total Recall: Rep. Candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger Overwhelmingly
Elected to Replace Dem. Gray Davis As California Gov.
Canadian Citizen Deported to Syria By U.S. Returns Home to
Montreal After Spending A Year in Damascus Jail
Study Finds Fox News Viewers Most Likely To Have Misperceptions
About Iraq Invasion
8:01-8:06 Headlines
8:06-8:07 One Minute Music Break
8:07-8:40 Total Recall: Rep. Candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger
Overwhelmingly Elected to Replace Dem. Gray Davis As California
Gov.
INTRO: Gray Davis became the first California governor in
history to be recalled yesterday with Republican candidate
Arnold Schwarzenegger winning the vote to replace him. We
host a roundtable discussion on the recall including Green
Party candidate Peter Camejo, United Farm Workers of America’s
co-founder Dolores Huerta, former California State Senator
Tom Hayden and others.
Total Recall: Arnold Schwarzenegger is governor of California.
Californians last night voted to recall Gov. Gray Davis just
11 months into his second term and overwhelmingly elected
Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger to replace him.
Davis is the first California governor to be recalled and
only the second in the nation's history after North Dakota's
Lynn Frazier in 1921. He conceded defeat shortly before 10pm
yesterday. The cost of the election to California taxpayers
is being estimated at $66 million.
Voters faced two questions - whether to recall Davis, and
who among the other candidates should replace him if he was
removed. The latest results show that 54 percent voted yes
to the recall and 46 percent voted against it.
Schwarzenegger won the vote to replace Davis with 48 percent.
Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante finished second
with 32 percent, he will remain in his position as Lieutenant
Gov of California. Conservative Republican State Senator Tom
McClintock came in third with 13 percent followed by Green
Party candidate Peter Camejo with 3 percent.
Adding to the novelty were the other 134 candidates on the
replacement ballot — among them a sumo wrestler, a porn
actress, publisher Larry Flynt and an assortment of entrepreneurs
who saw the race as good publicity.
Voters also rejected Proposition 54, a contentious initiative
that would have banned state and local governments from tracking
race in everything from preschools to police work. According
to exit polling voters across the racial spectrum rejected
the measure.
The 56 year-old Schwarzenegger was introduced by Jay Leno
before making his acceptance speech at his campaign headquarters.
Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy on Jay Leno’s
late-night show in August. The actor-turned politician will
be in charge of the nation's most populated state with an
economy surpassed by only five countries.
Schwarzenegger won the recall election despite accusations
of sexual misconduct by 16 women and allegations that he once
said admired Adolf Hitler and wished he too could enjoy a
stadium full of screaming fans. He later denied making the
Hitler comments.
Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver, brought her whole
family to the acceptance speech. She was joined by her mother
Eunice Kennedy Shriver who is sister to John F. Kennedy and
Robert F. Kennedy as well as former Democratic vice presidential
candidate Sargent Shriver.
The recall movement was launched in February by grass-roots
activists, angered over a tripling of the state vehicle license
fee and a 30 percent to 40 percent increase in student fees
at state colleges and universities.
The movement took off when conservative congressman Darrell
Issa, poured $1.7 million of his own fortune into the campaign
to get the measure on the ballot. He was planning to run himself
but backed out soon afterward.
Schwarzenegger will take office as soon as the election results
are certified - no later than Nov. 15.
Roundtable Discussion:
- Peter Camejo, Green Party candidate.
- Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers
of America with Cesar Chavez. She appeared with Governor
Gray Davis in the closing days before the vote.
- Tom Hayden, former State Senator in California and a longtime
movement activist. He is a fellow at the Institute of Politics
at Harvard University.
- Sonali Kolhatkar, host and producer of Uprising morning
show on KPFA.
- Willie Ratcliff, publisher of the San Francisco Bay View,
California’s leading African-American newspaper. His
paper opposed Gray Davis’s election last year but
backed Davis in yesterday’s recall vote.
Candidate Speeches:
- Tape: Jay Leno, host of the Tonight Show, the late night
comedy show where Schwarzenegger first announced he was
running for governor.
- Tape: Arnold Schwarzenegger, California governor-elect
speaking after winning California’s recall election.
- Tape: Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor of California
speaking about Proposition 54 after losing the gubernatorial
recall election.
8:41-8:50 Canadian Citizen Deported to Syria By U.S.
Returns Home to Montreal After Spending A Year in Damascus
Jail
INTRO: Syrian-born Canadian citizen Maher Arar spent a year
in a Damascus jail without charges. He was deported to Syria,
where he had not lived for 14 years, after being detained
by U.S. officials in JFK airport on a stopover flight from
Tunisia. We speak his brother Bassam Arar and the ACLU’s
Dalia Hashad.
Maher Arar has returned home to Canada. A Syrian-born Canadian
citizen, Arar was deported to Syria by U.S. officials. He
spent 374 days in a Damascus prison without charges. This
is his story:
On September 26, 2002 Arar was in JFK airport on a stopover
flight from Tunisia to Montreal. He was detained and interrogated
for nine hours without a lawyer. Officials claimed Arar had
ties to a terrorist organization. Arar was then detained at
the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
No one heard from him until a week later when Arar made a
desperate and emotional phone call to his mother-in-law telling
her that he had been jailed and needed help. The next week
US officials deported him. He was sent first to Jordan and
then to Syria where he had not lived in 14 years.
Maher Arar finally came home to Montreal on Monday. Upon
his return he said "I'm very glad to get back home and
I'm so excited to see my family again. My kids grew up about
a year." Arar is 33 years old.
- Bassam Arar, brother of Maher Arar.
- Dalia Hashad, attorney with the American Civil Liberties
Union.
Link: www.aclu.org
8:50-8:58 Study Finds Fox News Viewers Most Likely
To Have Misperceptions About Iraq Invasion
INTRO: A new study finds that a majority of Americans have
had significant misperceptions highly related to support for
the war with Iraq. The frequency of these misperceptions varies
significantly according to individuals’ primary source
of news with FoxNews viewers having the most misperceptions
and NPR/PBS viewers the least.
A new study based on a series of seven nationwide polls this
year reveals that a majority of Americans have had significant
misperceptions and these are highly related to support for
the war with Iraq.
The polling, conducted by the Program on International Policy
(PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks,
also reveals that the frequency of these misperceptions varies
significantly according to individuals’ primary source
of news.
The study focuses mainly on three misperceptions regarding
the invasion of Iraq:
- that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have
been found
- that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq
- that world public opinion favored the US going to war
with Iraq
Phone Guest: Clay Ramsay, research director at the Program
on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.
The polling for the study was conducted by PIPA and Knowledge
Networks.
Link: www.pipa.org
8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill, Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
[Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Rafael delaUz, Gabriel Weiss, Johnny Sender,
Rich Kim, Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Jenny
Filipazzo and Ionnis Mookas.]
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