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2013 Program Archive
October 8 - Bernie Sanders on the Supreme Court's Politicians for Sale Case; The 14th Amendment Called a Default "A National Crime"; Catholic Bishops Collude with Tea Party Reactionaries
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We begin with arguments before the Supreme Court in McCutcheon versus the FEC that could strike down any remaining limits on spending on candidates and parties. Senator Bernie Sanders, who was in the Supreme Court and later spoke on the steps afterwards, joins us to discuss whether the Court will further empower a few billionaires like those behind the Tea Party shutdown, who are radically altering the American political landscape, moving the country further and further to the right. |
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Then we speak with Princeton historian Sean Wilentz who has an article in Monday’s New York Times ”Obama and the Debt” which points out that the 14th Amendment was intended to prevent precisely the abuses that the current House Republicans blithely condone. We discuss how the Republican Party made paying our debts part of their 1868 platform declaring that “national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the utmost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad”, pronouncing any repudiation of the debt “a national crime”. |
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Then finally we examine the role of the U.S. Catholic bishops in encouraging the Republican House to take the current hostage-taking course while at the same time expressing their concern for the record rates of one in five children in poverty as well as the 49 million Americans who are food insecure. Adele Stan, who specializes in covering the intersection of religion and politics as RH Reality Check’s Senior Washington Correspondent, joins us to discuss her latest article “At Any Cost: How Catholic Bishops Pushed for a Shutdown – and Even a Default – Over Birth Control”. |
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October 7 - Complacency on Wall Street as U.S. Default Looms; The 12th Year of the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan Begins
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We begin with the growing concern on Wall Street that the Republican House will default on the debt of the United States for the first time in the nation’s history and discuss the consequences for the global financial markets, the U.S. and the world’s economies with former banker now financial reporter William Cohan, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World”.
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Then with the passing of the 12th year mark of the U.S. and NATO war in Afghanistan we discuss this broken country at a time when our government is broken with former Marine and State Department official Matthew Hoh who in 2009 resigned in protest over U.S. strategic policy and goals in Afghanistan. With President Karzai blaming NATO for not securing his nation and bringing “great suffering” and with Karzai’s brother, a pedophile, a warlord and the mentor of the 9/11 mastermind running to succeed Karzai, we will look into Afghanistan’s uncertain future. |
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Then finally, with Tuesday’s arrival of the much-delayed new $100 dollar bill, we discuss why the world’s favorite currency, two thirds of which circulates abroad and is continually counterfeited, has been so long in coming and whether the new bill that uses long-available technology making it harder to counterfeit, will save the Treasury the billions lost every year to counterfeiters. Dr. Benjamin Mazzotta, a researcher at the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises at the Fletcher School of Law And Diplomacy at Tufts University joins us to shatter the myth that cash is free of cost. |
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October 6 - Going Inside the GOP to Understand the Shutdown; The Real Motives Behind the Shutdown; A Critique of the Peace Movement's Double Standard
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We begin with “Inside the GOP: a report on focus groups with Evangelical, Tea Party, and Moderate Republicans” which finds that you can not understand the government shutdown unless you understand what is going on inside the GOP. An author of the report, Stanley Greenberg, the former pollster to President Bill Clinton, joins us to explain the contradiction that some polls indicate the Republicans are hurting themselves to the point they may lose the House in 2014, while Senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell were overheard saying “we’re gonna win this thing”.
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Then we examine the economic illiteracy underlying the Tea Party base of the GOP who feel it is necessary to take drastic steps to shut down the government in order to get our fiscal house in order, even though the deficit they cite as the reason is going down at record speed. Michael Lind, the Policy Director of the New America Foundation’s Economic Growth Program and author of “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States” joins us to discuss his latest article at Salon.com “Tea Party Radicalism is Misunderstood: Meet the Newest Right”. |
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Then finally we speak with Danny Postel about his article at The Huffington Post “Mission Accomplished? Syria, the Anti-War Movement, and the Spirit of Internationalism”. He co-edited the new book “The Syria Dilemma” and we discuss his critique that the peace movement is celebrating victory over stopping the bombing of Syria while remaining silent over the continued killing of over 100,000 civilians and the displacement of one third of Syria’s population.
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October 3 - "Has Obama (Inadvertently) Broken The Mold in U.S. Foreign Policy?"; The Host of "Stand Up for Main Street" A Political Comedy Benefit for Public Citizen
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We begin with the president’s challenge to House Speaker Boehner to allow a vote to end the government shutdown and the surreal spectacle of a Republican congressman blaming a park ranger for the government closure. An expert on campaigns, elections and political advertizing Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science at UCLA and co-author of the new book “The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Election”, joins us to discuss the tyranny of the minority as the Tea Party holds the nation hostage while threatening to tank the economy.
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Then we speak with Graham Fuller, the former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA about his article at Global Viewpoint “Has Obama (Inadvertently) Broken the Mould in U.S. Foreign Policy”. We discus the unraveling of American exceptionalism, American unilateralism, America as the world policeman and architect of world order as Obama backs away from the brink of a new war with Syria and opens up a dialogue with Iran. |
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Then finally are joined in the studio by Steve Skrovan, the host of “Stand Up For Main Street – a political comedy benefit for Public Citizen. We discuss his new comedy special “Stand up for Main Street “ – a Political Comedy Benefit for Public Citizen and the inadvertent comedy in the tragedy underway on Capitol Hill.
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October 2 - It's Even Worse Than the Two Washington Insiders First Warned; Averting the Catastrophic Self-Inflicted Wound of Default; Drugs are Cheaper, Purer and More Plentiful as Seizures Increase
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We begin with two Washington insiders who wrote the New York Times bestseller “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism”. Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann were among the first to expose the capture of the Republican Party by extremists and we discuss the threat to the constitution posed by Tea Party radicals who want nothing short of unconditional surrender by Barack Obama of his presidency. |
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Then we speak with Dr. Jacob Hacker, the Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University and the co-author of “Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class”. We discuss what the business community can do to lean on Republican lawmakers to avert the catastrophic self-inflicted wound of a default that would permanently undermine America’s unique advantage as a haven for global capital. |
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Then finally we look into the latest report on the failed war on drugs published this week in the British Medical Journal. The lead author Daniel Werb, the co-founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, who released the study, joins us to discuss the evidence that drugs have become cheaper, more pure and potent and much more plentiful in the last two decades despite an increase in drug seizures around the world. |
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