December 17 - Michael Lewis on "The Big Short"; Marco Rubio's Drug-Dealing Brother-In-Law; Why America's Middle East Allies Won't Join the Fight; A Mistrial in Baltimore

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the arrest today of the poster boy for Wall Street greed and speak with Michael Lewis, the author of “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt” and “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” which is now a movie starring Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling. We will discuss the growing capture of our politics by Wall Street and its increasing grip on our economy and discuss its amoral and sociopathic culture documented in “The Big Short” where the heroes win at the expense of destroying the lives of millions of their fellow Americans.

Part 2

Then we speak with Manuel Roig-Franzia a writer for The Washington Post who along with the Post’s investigative reporter Scott Higham wrote a recent article “The Drug-smuggling case that brought anguish to Marco Rubio’s family” which we discuss along with looking into what happened to the $15 million in cash that the DEA estimates Rubio’s drug-dealing brother in law had at his disposal that was never accounted for.

Part 3

Then as the yapping dogs of war among the Republican presidential candidates reach a crescendo as pundits clamor for American boots on the ground to fight the Islamic State, we will look into why our so-called allies in the region are dragging their feet. Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran Foreign Service Officer who after writing the book “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People”, was stripped of his security clearance and diplomatic credentials by the State Department, joins us. We will discuss his article at The Nation “Washington to Whomever: Please Fight the Islamic State for Us” and the Obama Administration continued insistence that its coalition of Gulf States, the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia will do the job even though it is abundantly clear that they won’t fight America’s war.  

Part 4

Then finally we speak with Amy Dillard, a Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore School of Law who served on a Baltimore commission to examine the in-custody death of a police prisoner. We will discuss the mistrial in the case against William Potter, one of the six officers charged in connection to Freddie Gray’s death in police custody, and assess the mood in Baltimore and how the trials might proceed.