Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Tonight is the first episode of Declaring Independence, which will be broadcast live every Thursday night from 6-7 pm EST on Public Reality Radio, WPRR 1680-AM in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can also listen to it streaming online by clicking here. We'll also have podcasts of the show available as soon as possible (we're still working out some of these details).
I'll have two guests on my first show. The first guest is Paul Demko, a reporter for the Minnesota Independent who has been following the Coleman/Franken recount up close. We'll be talking about that recount, what's going on with it and where it's gonna lead. My second guest is my friend Dan Ray, who teaches constitutional law. We'll be talking about Hillary Clinton and the emoluments clause and whether it will prevent her from being Secretary of State, and we may talk about Obama and the Supreme Court as well if we have time. Hope you all can tune in.
Comments
This is exciting! I always really enjoy your posts and I find them quite insightful and witty. So I look forward to your radio show (although I would greatly appreciate a podcast so I can listen even if I have to work Thursday evenings). Keep up the great work!
Posted by: Michelle Bell | December 4, 2008 10:10 AM
Definitely looking forward to the podcasts (being in a different timezone).
Any chance the podcasts can have their own separate RSS feed...?
What's the chances of getting a plug on Air America? ;-)
Good luck (not that you need it).
Posted by: David Durant | December 4, 2008 10:30 AM
I've been waiting for this for a long time! Are we going to be able to call in? I can't wait to subscribe to the podcasts.
Posted by: Reginald | December 4, 2008 11:06 AM
I love that word: emolument. Emolument, emolument, emolument. It sounds like a particularly soothing ointment (another excellent word) made with aloe and camphor. I can see why there would be a clause about it somewhere.
Anyway, congrats on the show!
Posted by: Dave M | December 4, 2008 11:47 AM
Rats. I teach my seminar Thursday night. :(
Posted by: RBH | December 4, 2008 12:57 PM
Right on! I could use some Ed on my iPod. :)
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | December 4, 2008 1:13 PM
Congrats! Once you catch the radio bug you can't shake it!
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | December 4, 2008 1:21 PM
So, were you able to get KevMo, Paul Schaeffer or G.E. Smith to do your theme song? And what the hell is it, anyway?
Posted by: democommie | December 4, 2008 2:25 PM
Best of luck! I won't be able to listen, but I will check in to see how it went.
Posted by: Shygetz | December 4, 2008 2:41 PM
The theme song is going to be Neil Young's Rocking in the Free World. I'm at the station now and we've got the show opening and closing recorded and ready to go. And by the way, we may have the podcast available as early as tonight, certainly by tomorrow. So those who can't listen live can get it on their Ipods almost immediately.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | December 4, 2008 3:01 PM
Darn it, Ed!
Right time zone, right radio market... wrong time. I'm at work (without the ability to listen to the radio).
Oh well, one more podcast listener when it comes on. Looking forward to it.
Posted by: chancelikely | December 4, 2008 3:14 PM
Sounds awesome! Can't wait to hear it. I hope you are planning to put it on Zune too for us non-Apple users.
Posted by: Iason Ouabache | December 4, 2008 3:55 PM
Urgh... I tuned in right at 6 on the live stream and heard the station ID, but after that only dead air for the last several minutes.
Posted by: ivan | December 4, 2008 6:08 PM
Dammit Ed, Dad and I are sitting here, waiting with bated breath - and nothing. Well, not really bated breath, but it's kind of a bummer here - especially because I really love Rockin in the Free World.
Posted by: DuWayne | December 4, 2008 6:09 PM
Nothing but 'The Sound of Silence'
Posted by: pensy | December 4, 2008 6:12 PM
Ditto on the dead air. Downloaded the player the station provided for MS IE for Windows XP, dead air. Tried latest version of Mac OS X, and the wmp did nothing in latest verions of both Firefox and Safari. The other player opened in iTunes but dead air as well. iTunes can open URLs itself and play but that didn't work either, all dead air.
It appears I have the connection, but nothing is being broadcast (activity over my net connection is a mere 4 KB/sec.).
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 4, 2008 6:28 PM
Robert Price (the Bible Geek) came on right at 7 a.m. so I don't think the problem was my computer.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 4, 2008 7:05 PM
Oh no! Jeremy is trying to figure out why, but it did go out over the air and it went very, very well. We had one little initial hiccup because the wrong button was pushed to get the first guest on the line, but that was 30 seconds and was fixed. The good news is that we'll have the podcast available by tomorrow, so everyone can listen to it then.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | December 4, 2008 7:06 PM
Silence over here (UK), too, alas...Time for bed!
Posted by: Bartholomew | December 4, 2008 7:16 PM
Like others, I'm looking forward to the podcast. Something tells me that your voice is different that I've imagined it.
Off topic, what are your thoughts on Donofrio v Wells?
Posted by: Bachalon | December 4, 2008 8:51 PM
The problem isn't with anyone's computer, it's a technical glitch at the station. The streaming works perfectly for all the content they get from Pacifica, but when we went live (this was the first live show this station has ever done), the online stream didn't pick up the live feed. We'll get it fixed before next week.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | December 4, 2008 9:30 PM
Ed:
Neil Young, huh. Cool. I'll catch the podcast if I can figure out how to do it.
Just one suggestion. If you're gonna have rightwingers on, just make sure you get dumb ones to begin with...oh, that's right, I forgot.
Posted by: democommie | December 5, 2008 12:08 AM
Sounds like a good first episode/cast.
Good luck on the new venture.
You're truly an independent media hero!
Posted by: Ron Brown | December 5, 2008 3:50 AM
Ed:
Now that you're an "on air celebrity" will you be doing blog signings and stuff like that? Also, does this explain why you haven't posted AN 'F'ING THING TODAY, AND IT'S ALREADY 9:30 AM? C'mon. man, some of us gotta have a "taste" first thing to start our day of idle lyingabout in the right frame of mind. Okay, I freely admit; my name is democommie and I'm an Edaholic. There, happy?
Posted by: democommie | December 5, 2008 9:35 AM
I don't see the show mentioned at http://www.publicrealityradio.org/browse.php.
Also: don't just have an iTunes podcast, but get an RSS feed as well. I prefer to use apps other that iTunes for podcasts.
Posted by: Blue Nine | December 5, 2008 10:52 AM
The show hasn't been added to the PRR website yet. Nor do I have the website up yet. But we will have an RSS feed for the podcast, so you won't need Itunes. Jeremy should have that done today.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | December 5, 2008 11:19 AM