2012 Program Archive

June 5 - Will a Purple State Turn Red or Blue?; Efforts to Reverse Walker Have Fallen Short; Outside Money Swamps the Recall Race; Labor Reporter Locked Out of Capitol by a Corporate Flack

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We begin with Joel Rogers, a professor of law, political science, public affairs and sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he directs the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. We discuss the local dynamics of today's recall race that has taken on national significance.

 joel rogers

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Then to get a sense of how politics have become so intense and polarized in a state that has long been considered to be moderate and centrist, we will speak with the Editor of WisPolitics.com, J.R. Ross. He has covered Wisconsin politics and the statehouse for the last decade.

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Then we get an update on the record amount of out-of-state money that has poured into this recall race. Bill Lueders, a veteran Wisconsin newspaper editor and reporter who is the money and politics project director at WisconsinWatch.org, joins us.

 
 bill lueders

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Then finally we speak with a reporter on another subject; that is what happens when a labor journalist tries to interview the CEO of a big corporation at a hearing on Capitol Hill. Mike Elk, who writes for Harper’s Magazine, the American Prospect, the Huffington Post and is a staff writer for In these Times, joins us to tell how his microphone was ripped from him by a staffer for a Republican congressman and how the Communications Director of the Honeywell Corporation locked him in a room in the capitol to prevent him from reporting.

 mike elk

 

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June 4 - Pushing Back Against Voter Suppression; G-7 Finance Ministers to Meet on Euro Crisis; Chris Hedges on "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt"

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We begin with an update on the voter suppression activities of Republican governors and legislatures that the Department of Justice is finally pushing back against. Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU discusses efforts underway to re-enfranchise five million eligible voters who have been denied their vote by new Republican laws intended to prevent likely Democratic voters from going to the polls in November.

 Wendy Weiser

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Then we discuss Europe’s emergency meeting of the G -7 Finance Ministers taking place on Tuesday to stop a run on the Spanish banks, which has heightened global concerns about euro zone debt in the already-strained 17-nation European currency arrangement. Amy Verdun, the Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Victoria in Canada and co-editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies, assesses whether this latest crisis meeting will finally address the two-year-long on-going crisis.

 Amy Verdun

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Then finally Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist and author Chris Hedges discusses his latest book, “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt”. This graphic novel is a searing account of the travels of Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco through America’s sacrifice zones, where the poorest, most exploited citizens are victims of the unchecked depredations of big business in a contemporary oligarchic system of masters and serfs.

 

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June 3 - The Power of Money Versus Grassroots Organization; Diane Ravitch on the Privatization of Education; Jerry Mander on the Fatal Flaws of Capitalism

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 We begin and speak with the Mayor of Wisconsin, Paul Soglin about the Democrat’s ground game in the last days before the recall election of Governor Scott Walker who has received most of the $63.5 million that has poured into Wisconsin ahead of this bellwether vote next Tuesday. We discuss this test case between the power of money versus organization at the grassroots, in an election that could be a harbinger for who will win the Congress and the presidency in November.
 		 paul solgin

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 Then we get an analysis of the latest Republican effort at radical social engineering, and that is the privatization of education now underway in Louisiana. Joining us is the former Assistant Secretary of Education in the George W. Bush Administration Diane Ravitch, the author of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System”.  We discuss how Christian schools will now get vouchers to teach the Book of Genesis instead of evolution and how private sector vendors can now set up apprenticeship schools to exploit free labor in the name of education.
 		 diane ravitch

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 Then finally the patriarch of the anti-globalism movement, Jerry Mander joins us. He has a new book “The Capitalism Papers: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System”. We look into his seven point-by-point arguments that explain how Capitalism’s nature-destroying imperative for growth is both dooming the planet and not providing the happiness its products promise. jerry mander

 

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May 31 - Did Obama Veto a French/ Saudi Airstrike On Assad's Palace?; Two Washington Insiders Who Dared To Tell The Truth

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Starting with foreign policy, we look at Syria on the brink, following Secretary of State Clinton’s warning to the Russians that unless they get serious about restraining the Assad killing machine, Russia will be responsible for Syria plunging into civil war. Aram Nerguizian, a Visiting Fellow in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies joins us to discuss reports that recently French President Sarkozy and Saudi Defense Minister Prince Salman were ready to bomb the Assad clan’s palace on top of Mount Qassioun, but the joint French/Saudi airstrike was vetoed by President Obama.

 aram

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Then we switch to domestic politics and discuss our dysfunctional Congress with two veteran Washington insiders, Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann. Together they have written a provocative best-seller “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism”. Both long-time observers and noted scholars of Congress, they have been effectively banned by the mainstream media because they break the sacred convention of phony balance by pointing out that the Republicans are largely to blame and that the Democrats can no longer be described as the liberal party and the Republicans as the conservative party. Now the Democrats are the conservative party and the Republicans are the radical party.

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thomas mann

 

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May 30 - Will Obama Run Against Wall Street?; Romney Embraces "Birther" Buffoon; Radioactive Tuna!

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We begin with Mike Lux who is the CEO of Progressive Strategies and served as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison from 1993 to 1995. We discuss the backlash to Obama’s criticism of Bain Capital from Wall Street Democrats and whether Obama will adopt a more populist anti-Wall Street campaign against the candidate of the 1%.

 Lux

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Then, following last night’s two fundraisers that reality TV star Donald Trump threw for Mitt Romney, we speak with Rashad Robinson, the Executive Director of ColorOfChange who is publically calling for Mitt Romney to repudiate Donald Trump’s racially-tinged “birther” obsession and distance himself from Trump who is urging Romney to embrace this racist conspiracy theory as a tactic to win the presidential election.

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Then finally, with news reports that radioactive tuna have been caught in Californian waters, we look into the extent to which radioactivity from the Japanese nuclear disaster has arrived on America’s shores and whether the public has been fully informed. Award-winning investigative journalist, Karl Grossman joins us to discuss the continuing fallout from Fukushima and why the recent head of the NRC was forced to resign.

 

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