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2013 Program Archive
August 13 - North Carolina's Assault on Voting Rights; The Author of an Explosive New Expose "American Coup: How a Terrified Government is Destroying the Constitution"
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We begin with Hillary Clinton’s slamming of North Carolina’s voter suppression bill just signed by the Republican governor that she said “reads like the greatest hits of voter suppression”. Ari Berman, a contributing writer for The Nation who has been reporting from North Carolina joins us to discuss the state’s Republican’s flagrant assault on voting rights that have been enabled by a recent Supreme Court decision, and his article at The Nation, “North Carolina’s Sweeping Voter Suppression Law is Challenged in Court”. |  |
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Then we speak with one of America’s premier military experts who, along with the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, wrote the groundbreaking expose of the privatized national security state “Top Secret America”. William Arkin joins us to discuss his explosive follow-up “American Coup: How a Terrified Government is Destroying the Constitution”. We discuss his brand new book that describes the desk-bound takeover of the highest reaches of government by a coterie of “gray men” of the national security establishment that he calls the executive agents. We look into how doomsday has become every day in contemporary America as a result of the forever war and how the mechanism is already in place for an American coup that William Arkin warns about in this latest and most powerful reminder of our fading freedoms that we are trading away for a fictional guarantee of security. |
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August 12 - A Judge on Changes in Drug Sentencing; Ending The Failed "War on Drugs"; The Puny and Paltry Threats America Faces
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We begin with long overdue changes in drug sentencing announced by Attorney General Holder and speak with California Superior Court Judge James Gray, who was a former Federal Prosecutor in the US Attorney’s office and ran for Vice President of the United States in 2012 as the Libertarian Party’s candidate. We discuss a federal prison system that has grown 800% since the 1980’s and the moral and human costs to the United States, which has 5% of the world’s population, but holds 25% of the world’s prisoners. |  |
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Then we speak with the filmmaker of the Academy Award-nominated best documentary feature of 2012 “The House I Live In”. Eugene Jarecki joins us to discuss the sentencing reforms which were called for in his powerful and wide-ranging examination of the prison/industrial complex and our failed “war on drugs” in a film that takes viewers from ravaged inner city communities to overcrowded prisons with drug users, prison guards, narcotics officers and judges all acknowledging a broken system that might now begin to change direction. |
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Then finally we speak with Michael Cohen, a columnist at Foreign Policy who previously served in the State Department as chief speechwriter for the U.S. Representative at the U.N. We discuss his recent article in the U.K. Guardian “Threat to America? The Size of our own Military Budget” that examines our bloated military budget compared to what he sees as the paltry foreign policy threats outlined by the departing deputy head of the CIA as clear and present dangers. |
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August 11 - Is Iraq Unravelling? Is the Natural Gas Boom Contributing to Global Warming; The Mediocre Mind Behind Tea Party Philosophy
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We begin with the rising death toll in what appears to be a resumption of the Sunni/Shia civil war in Iraq that General Petraeus’s much-praised “surge” was supposed to have ended. Iraq expert Juan Cole joins us to discuss the impact that the Syrian civil war is having on the restive Sunni Anbar province on the Syrian border that has become a haven for jihadists of the so-called Al Qaeda in Iraq. |  |
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Then we assess the extent to which the much-touted shift to cheap and abundant natural gas as a less-polluting source of energy that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming is a lie. Deborah Goldberg, the Managing Attorney at Earthjustice joins us to discuss how the benefits of the natural gas boom that has the U.S. surpassing Russia as the world’s biggest producer, are offset by the leakage of methane from “fracking” which causes seepage of methane, a far more damaging greenhouse gas thirty times worse than CO2. |
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Then finally, with the leadership of the Republican House unable to calm their own caucus threatening to shut down the government again, we look into the philosophical underpinning of the Tea Party radicals bent on sabotaging the government no matter what the consequences are for the nation. Michael Lind, the co-founder of the New America Foundation and author of “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States” joins us to discuss his latest article at Salon, “How Did Ayn Rand Become a Hero of Right-Wing Nerds Everywhere?” |  |
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August 8 - Greece's PM at The White House as Unemployment Reaches a Record High; Preparing for Another War with Hezbollah; Shut Out of ALEC
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We begin with today’s White House visit by the Greek Prime Minister Antonio Samaras where Obama called for a balance between austerity and growth so the Greek people could “see a light at the end of the tunnel”. The Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University Andre Gerolymatos joins us to discuss today’s announcement that unemployment in Greece has reached a record 27.6% with youth unemployment at 60%. |  |
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Then we look into the extent to which the Israeli public is being prepared for a war with Hezbollah, following a briefing yesterday in which senior military officials warned that the next war with Hezbollah could involve up to 100,000 longer range, more accurate rockets with larger warheads than the 4,000 that rained down on Israel in the 2006 war. Daniel Byman, a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and author of “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counter-Terrorism” joins us to analyze these latest rumors of another war. |  |
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Then finally we hear from “Background Briefing’s” special correspondent at the 40thALEC convention in Chicago, Lauren Windsor, the host and producer of “The Undercurrent” on the Young Turks network. Along with most of the press, she was denied access to the secretive meetings between mostly Republican State legislators and the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council whose model bills like the “Stand Your Ground” legislation continue to be adopted around the country. We discuss how the protests outside resonated on the secret meetings taking place on the inside. |
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Despite Lauren Windsor's credentials as a reporter for Background Briefing, she was denied entry to the ALEC convention. However, she managed to get an interview with Ohio State Representative John Adams who participated in the convention. Listen below. |
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August 7 - Obama Cancels on Putin; Media Properties as Playthings for Billionaires; The Washington Post Company's Rotten Core
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We begin with today’s announcement from the White House that President Obama is cancelling his summit meeting with Russian president Putin but will attend the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg. Kimberly Marten, a professor of political science at Barnard College of Columbia University joins us to discuss how much the Snowden affair affected the decision and the other irritants besetting bilateral relations like Putin’s assault on LGBT rights. |  |
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Then we speak with media analyst Robert McChesney, co-author with John Nichols of “Dollarocracy: How the Money-and-Media-Election Complex is Destroying America”. Following the purchase of the Washington Post by the billionaire owner of Amazon, we look into how failing newspapers and magazines are become playthings for billionaires, and discuss the collapse of the news media in which professionalism has been replaced by commercialism as resources for reporting are cut, and investigative journalism is all but eliminated. |  |
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Finally, we examine the most lucrative part of the Washington Post Company that was not sold to Jeff Bezos, and that is the Kaplan for-profit division which accounts for 55% of the company’s revenue. David Halperin, a senior fellow at Republic Report where he has the article “Bezos Purchase of the Post Leaves Graham with Kaplan For-Profit College” which is also at The Huffington Post, joins us to discuss how the Post’s former owner got the White House to water down rules that would have held these predatory diploma mills that saddle students with crippling debt, accountable. |  |
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