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2013 Program Archive
July 23 - The NSA Strikes Back; Scapegoating Public Employees in Detroit's Bankruptcy; Investigating the Big Banks for Gaming Commodities
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We begin with an emergency private briefing of members of the House of Representatives called for by the head of the National Security Agency General Keith Alexander, aimed at stopping an amendment authored by Republican Justin Amash and Democrat John Conyers that would curb the NSA’s authority to collect communications data on millions of Americans. James Bamford, an investigative journalist who has written a number of best-sellers about the NSA joins us to discuss the preliminary damage control at the NSA that indicates Edward Snowden did not access the agency’s “crown jewels”.
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Then we talk about the bankruptcy of Detroit where a very small part of the problem, the pensions of public employees, is being exaggerated by the governor of Michigan Rick Snyder who is scapegoating public employees and their unions in line with the ideological game plan of other right wing Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ellen Schultz, the author of “Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers”, joins us to discuss how the pension benefits protected by state law ended up on the table in Detroit’s bankruptcy proceedings. |
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Then finally we examine how the largest banks are profiting from manipulating the price of commodities which was the subject of a hearing today before a U.S. Senate Banking Sub-committee. Saule Omarova, a Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina who specializes in regulation of financial institutions, banking law, international finance and corporate finance, joins us to discuss her testimony and the need for the public to gain awareness of how much the price of food, gas and electricity is being driven up by the big Wall Street banks who profit at the expense of ordinary consumers. |
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July 22 - Will Larry Summers be the Next Chairman of the Fed? The Former Commander of Abu Ghraib on the Massive Prison Break; A Wry Look at the Royal Birth
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We begin with the possibility that President Obama might nominate Larry Summers to succeed Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. William Greider, the national affairs correspondent for The Nation and author of “Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country” joins us to discuss what is an alarming prospect for many progressives who see Larry Summers, the architect of the repeal of the Glass/Steagall Act, as a champion of Wall Street and a menace to Main Street. |  |
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Then we speak with the former commander of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski, about the brazen jailbreak in which 500 prisoners, including senior Al Qaeda leaders, escaped from the notorious prison during a special communal Ramadan feast under a hail of mortar fire and car bomb explosions. We will discuss how little progress has been made in Iraq since it was “liberated” by George W. Bush, as the sectarian divide becomes more intense under Al Maliki’s Shia-led government who are filling the jails with Sunni prisoners. |
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Then finally, we go to England to celebrate the royal birth of an 8 pound six ounce boy, with Francis Wheen, the deputy editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye. We discuss the royal baby fever that has gripped both the U.K. and the United States, where the press is brimming with breathless sycophantic gushing at the arrival of the third in line to the British throne, in spite of the fact that the United States of America was foundered and forged by a revolution against that same throne and royal family. |
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July 21 - Why Whites Cling to the Fiction that Race is no Longer a Problem; Building on the President's Rhetoric on Race Relations; An Israeli Calls for a Boycott
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We begin with a response to President Obama’s recent remarks on race and a reaction to the demonstrations taking place across the country in response to the verdict acquitting George Zimmerman for shooting the unarmed black teenage Trayvon Martin. Charles Gallagher, a professor of Sociology and the Chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at La Salle University and author of “Below the Belt: Race, Ethnicity, Labor and Politics in a Changing Sunbelt” joins us to discuss why a lot of whites cling to the fiction that race relations are no longer a problem in America. |
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Then we speak with Obery Hendricks, a Visiting Scholar in Religion and African American Studies at Columbia University and author of “The Universe Bends Towards Justice: Radical Reflections on the Bible, the Church and the Body Politic”. We discuss how the president might build on his powerful speeches on race that many feel do not go sufficiently beyond rhetoric to address the reality of race relations in America brought into focus but the flagrantly unjust murder of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer. |
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Then finally we go to Israel to speak with Gideon Levy, a columnist for Ha’aritz and author of “The Punishment of Gaza”. His recent article “The Israeli Patriot’s Final Refuge: Boycott” has gained international attention and might have broken the law in Israel. With peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resuming tentatively and reluctantly, we discuss Gideon Levy’s contention that change won’t come from within unless Israel pays a price for the occupation. |
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July 18 - Will the Capture of a Mexican Drug Lord Provoke a Bloody Backlash?; Putin Jails a Potential Rival; Washington Dithers While Syria Burns
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We begin and go to Mexico City to speak with veteran correspondent Dudley Althaus the senior correspondent in Mexico for Global Post where he has an article “Mexico’s Zetas boss nabbed. Cue the brutal backlash”. We discuss the capture of one of Mexico’s most wanted men and whether this will spur the rival Sinaloa Cartel to seize control of the Zetas’ drug smuggling routes into the United States.
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Then we speak with Ambassador Steven Pifer, an expert on Russia at the Brookings Institution who served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia at the National Security Council. We discuss the five year jail sentence of Russia’s charismatic young anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny who Putin is afraid could be a potential opposition leader so is railroading him on trumped up charges to prevent Navalny from running for mayor of Moscow. |
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Then finally, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs acknowledging today that “currently the tide seems to have shifted in Assad’s favor” in Syria, we look into calls from key Senators who are pressuring Obama to use force to defeat Assad as the Syrian opposition loses ground and shows deepening signs of division. Henri Barkey, who served as a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff on the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean and Intelligence, joins to assess the increasingly bloody stalemate that has the U.S and its allies dithering while |
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July 17 - Cuba and North Korea's Hidden Ties Exposed; The Reversal of Political Islam in the Middle East; A Victim of Solitary Confinement on the Hunger Strike
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We begin with the very puzzling incident in the Panama Canal where a North Korean freighter was intercepted containing ancient Soviet era weaponry from Cuba, hidden under tons of brown sugar. Roberto Suro, who heads up the Cuba Program at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, joins us to discuss this flashback to the Cold War and whether it could set back fledgling efforts at improving U.S. – Cuban relations. |  |
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Then we get an analysis of how the reversal of political Islam in Egypt is reverberating throughout the Middle East, and the behind-the-scenes struggle between Saudi Arabia and Qatar to shape the future of political Islam to prevent democratic reform infecting their own repressive feudal monarchies. Veteran New York Times Middle East correspondent Youssef Ibrahim joins us to discuss the widespread disappointment and cynicism towards radical Islamic regimes, like Hezbollah and Hamas amongst Arabs, as well the rejections of theocratic intrusion into secular life in Turkey, Tunisia and Eqypt. |  |
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Then finally, as the hunger strike in California’s prisons over solitary confinement enters its tenth day, we speak with Sarah Shourd, who has an article at the ACLU’s website, “The Iranian Government locked me in solitary confinement for 410 days. Today my thoughts are with the hunger strikers”. We discuss her ordeal as a political hostage in Iran and an article in Wednesday’s New York Times by Wilbert Rideau who spent 12 years in solitary confinement. |  |
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