Full Program

Part 1

We begin with last-minute efforts to avoid a default with all eyes on the U.S Senate where a deal is in the works but what happens after that when it gets to the House remains uncertain. Jim Manley, who served as a senior advisor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for six years and before that was an aide to Senator Ted Kennedy for 12 years, joins us with an assessment of the sudden bi-partisanship and spirit of compromise on display between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell.

Part 2

Then we speak with Tim Dickinson about his article in the current Rolling Stone “Inside the Republican Suicide Machine” that reveals the role of Congressman Jim Jordan, the head of the shadow leadership team in the House know as the Jedi Council that has been dogging Speaker Boehner at every turn and still may try to thwart him on avoiding a default, as well as challenge his leadership later should Boehner allow a vote of the full House before Thursday.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the state of polarization in Washington with Keith Poole, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and author of “Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches”. We discuss the reasons why our politics have become so poisonous, polarized and gridlocked and whether the Republicans will pay a price for the Tea Party’s unpopular exercise of government by extortion.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of how the reckless and suicidal brinkmanship in Washington looks to a group of the world’s leading economists meeting in the nation’s capitol. Economist Stephany Griffith Jones, who is currently the Financial Markets Program Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University joins us to offer her perspective on government by extortion and the new head of the Fed Janet Yellen.

Part 2

Then we speak with another female economist about the new Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellin, the first woman to hold what is considered the second most powerful position in the world. Pavlina Tcherneva, a professor of economics at Bard College who served as the associate director for economic analysis at the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability joins us to discuss the good news at the Fed and the continuing bad news from the capitol where the Republicans are offering a truce until November 22 before they resume their threat to default.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter and columnist for the LA Times Michael Hiltzik about the letter from the billionaire Koch brothers to U.S. Senators where they distanced themselves from the current activities of the Tea Party, apparently alarmed at the prospect of the grave damage the actions of the Congressional caucus they have supported could do to the economy and to their 70 billion dollar fortune. We examine the role of money behind the shutdown and whether money from the business community might now flow to moderate Republicans instead of Tea Party extremists.