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2012 Program Archive
October 9 - An Analysis of Romney's National Security Policy; IMF Report on a Slowdown of Global Recovery; How Miners Used for Props by Romney Pay for Their Boss's Politics
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We begin with an analysis of Mitt Romney’s speech to the cadets at VMI that was billed as his vision of a new national security strategy. We speak with Lawrence Korb, who was an Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration and is the author of “A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction”. |
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Then we examine a new report by the IMF warning that the global economic recovery is slowing and that growth rates in 2013 will be less than earlier projections. Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research joins us to discuss how austerity is slowing growth, particularly in the UK which the IMF singled out. But nevertheless Republican deficits hawks keep insisting Americans need a dose of austerity to prevent the country from falling off the fiscal cliff. |
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Then finally we look into a lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party against Murray Energy whose owner coerced the company’s coal miners to appear as a backdrop for a Mitt Romney rally in Ohio. The lawsuit was stimulated by an article in The New Republic “Coal Miner’s Donor: A Mitt Romney Benefactor and his Surprisingly Generous Employees”. The author of the article, Alec MacGillis, a senior editor at The New Republic, joins us. |
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October 8 - A Pollster on Romney's Surge in the Polls; Iran's Economy in Collapse; The International Crisis Group's Alarming Report on Afghanistan
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We begin with the presidential polls where the race is narrowing following President Obama’s lackluster performance in the first debate. Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll and the chief spokesman for the Florida and Ohio polls joins us to discuss how much Mitt Romney has gained and the president has lost as the election enters its last month. |
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Then, as the Iranian government’s oil revenues shrink from international sanctions while the regime continues to hide its nuclear program and finance the besieged Assad clan in Syria, we look into the collapse of Iran’s currency. A former advisor to the Director of the National Iranian Oil Company, Dr Sara Vakhsouri joins us to discuss the devastating effect inflation is having on Iran’s middle class and the poor who cannot afford basic food and medicine. |
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Then finally we speak with Paul Quinn Judge, the Director of the International Crisis Group, who have just released a devastating report on Afghanistan’s future when the US and NATO pulls out, “Afghanistan: The Long Hard Road to the 2014 Transition”. We discuss the report’s bleak findings and whether the Karzai government will deal with its own mismanagement and corruption to stave off a likely defeat by the Taliban. |
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October 7 - Turkey and Syria "Not Far" From War; The Paucity of Presidential Debates; "The Good Girls Revolt"
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We begin with Turkey and Syria exchanging cross-border mortar shelling for a fifth day and the Turkish Prime Minister saying the two countries are “not far” from war. Asli Bali, a professor in the UCLA School of Law who is on the Advisory Council of the Middle East Division of Human Right Watch joins us to discuss the escalation of war in the region. |
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Then we get an assessment of the role of journalism in the presidential debates following the first exchange between Romney and Obama where the big questions hovering over the campaign about Mitt Romney’s taxes and his attitude toward the 47% were not discussed. The founder and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, Tom Rosenstiel joins us to discuss how the American people and our democracy are not being served by these staged and circumscribed events. |
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Then finally we speak with Lynn Povich about how she and a group of the “good girls” at Newsweek during the era of “Mad Men” and male chauvinism, revolted against being secretaries and researchers and sued their bosses and changed journalism. Lynn Povich is the author of a new book “The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace”. |
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October 4 - The Presidential Debate and the Failure of Journalism; Venezuela's Presidential Election; From the Current Gilded Age to the Last
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We begin with an analysis of the first presidential debate in terms of whether the American people are well served by these few debates that are controlled and circumscribed by both parties and where the role of journalists in probing candidates is limited and lacking. Jay Rosen, a Professor of Journalism at New York University and the author of “What Are Journalists For?” joins us. His award-winning blog, PressThink offers critical analysis of journalism and the press. |
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Then we go to Venezuela to get an assessment of where the candidates stand in the last days before Sunday’s presidential election. Virginia Lopez, a Caracas-based journalist who covers Latin America and Venezuela for the UK Guardian joins us to discuss the conflicting polls that give Hugo Chavez a lead between 5 and 10 points and others that give his challenger Henrique Capriles a 4 point lead. |
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Then finally, since we appear to be living in the new Gilded Age, we look back into a fascinating character from the last Gilded Age with Janet Wallach the author of a new book “The Richest Women in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age”. We discuss similarities between the current Gilded Age and the last and comparisons between the plutocrats of today and those that the thrifty Quaker Hetty Green despised in her day. |
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October 3 - Congress's Most 1%-Friendly Lawmakers; Iranians Take to the Street; "We're Not Broke"
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We begin with a new report on the Congress’s most 1% friendly lawmakers and speak with one of its authors Scott Klinger, who is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. We discuss the nearly 60 members of congress who have received failing grades for feathering the nests of America’s most affluent while ignoring the needs of the 99%. |
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Then we look into the increasing economic distress in Iran from sanctions that are driving down the value of the rial and causing street demonstrations that the Iranian government is blaming on foreign subversives. Sohrab Behdad, professor of Economics at Denison University who previously taught economics at Tehran University, joins us. We discuss the role of the merchants, the “Bazaaris” and the money-changers in these growing protests against an unpopular government. |
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Then finally we speak with the film makers of a new feature documentary “We’re Not Broke”. Co-directors Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce join us to discuss their film that documents how U.S. corporations don’t pay taxes and hide trillions offshore while a growing number of Americans take their frustrations to the streets demanding corporations pay their fair share. |
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