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2013 Program Archive
July 16 - Suing the NSA to Stop Them Spying on Americans; Open Season on Black Boys; Africa's Population Explosion
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We begin with a lawsuit filed today in Federal Court by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the National Security Agency to stop it spying on American Citizens. Cindy Cohn, the Legal Director and General Counsel of the Electronic Freedom Foundation joins us to discuss the legal challenges ahead to stop what the plaintiff’s describe as an “illegal and unconstitutional program of dragnet electronic surveillance”. |  |
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Then we speak with Gary Younge, a feature writer and award-winning columnist for the UK Guardian, whose recent article in The Guardian “Open season on black boys after a verdict like this”, has gained international attention. With appeals for calm in the wake of such an unjust verdict, Gary Younge asks, as the father of a black child, how he and his child can feel calm and whether the only option now for black teens who venture out of their homes, is to be armed like George Zimmerman. |
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Then finally, following a recent report by the U.N. that China’s population will shrink, India’s will plateau, but Africa’s will explode, we speak with John Bongaarts, Vice President and Distinguished Scholar at the Population Council, an international non-profit that studies world population. We look into Africa’s lost decade in birth control and how the world’s increasingly strained water and land resources will be able to support and estimated 9.6 billion people by 2050. |
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July 15 - The Corporate Backers of "Stand Your Ground"; Did the Prosecution Blow the Zimmerman Trial?; The Showdown in the Senate
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We begin with an analysis of the role of the organization that crafted the “stand your ground” law with the NRA, ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, in the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman. Lisa Graves, the Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy and the publisher of ALECexposed.org joins us to discuss how much blood do the corporate backer of ALEC like Verizon and AT&T. have on their hands. |  |
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Then we speak with a prominent Florida criminal defense lawyer Jeffrey Weiner, the former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to assess how much the prosecution blew the case against George Zimmerman and whether their prosecutorial over-reach in charging Zimmerman with second degree murder backfired. We also discuss why the jury was not told that the police dispatcher told the armed and angry Zimmerman to stay in his car. |
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Then finally we look into the looming showdown in the Senate where tomorrow, if the 43 Republican senators block the nomination of Richard Cordray to head up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as they have threatened, Majority Leader Harry Reid will change the Senate rules to allow a simple majority vote on non-lifetime appointment to the executive branch. Micah Hauptman, the Financial Policy Counsel at Public Citizen, joins us to discuss why Republican Senators are determined to neutralize the new bureau that protects citizens from the same kind of bank fraud that caused the 2008 crash. |
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July 14 - Was Tamarod Used by the Military as a Pretext for a Coup in Egypt?; The Saudi Monarchy's Motives in Undermining Egyptian Democracy; The Prosecution's Failures in the Trayvon Martin Trial
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We begin with an assessment of the political crisis in Egypt from a political insider who knows many of the important players involved in what is widely described as a military coup. Dr. Mona Makram-Ebeid, who recently resigned from the Shura Council in support of the Tamarod (rebellion) movement joins us to discuss the opposition movement that galvanized around a rejection of the Morsi Muslim Brotherhood government and the extent to which Tamarod might have been used as a pretext by the military and old guard to seize power. |
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Then we examine the role of Saudi Arabia in undermining the Morsi government through political and economic sabotage, while conversely rewarding the new government with $8 billion in aid as gasoline suddenly becomes available and the Mubarak-era police force reappears to police the streets. Toby Jones, a professor of history at Rutgers University and author of “Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia” joins us to discuss the ruling Saudi monarch’s motives in undermining Egypt’s democratic progress. |
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Then finally we address the legal questions surrounding the failure of the prosecution in the Trayvon Martin case with Kenneth Nunn, a Professor of Law at the University of Florida and the Associate Director of the Center for Children and Families in Gainesville, Florida. We discuss the failure of not having an African American on the jury, not allowing the issue of race to enter the trial, and inadequate jury instructions explaining all of the legal landscape surrounding the “Stand Your Ground Law”, particularly the prohibition against an armed citizen being the aggressor. |
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July 11 - Is Edward Snowden in a Former KGB Dacha?; Public Opinion Shifts Dramatically in Snowden's Favor; Piety and Profits for Governor Perry and his Sister; A "Christian Nation" Under President Sarah Palin!
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We begin and go to Moscow to speak with Simon Shuster who covers Russia for TIME magazine, Reuters and the Associated Press and has an article at TIME “Snowden in Moscow: What Russian Authorities Might be Doing With the NSA Whistleblower”. We discuss the widely held belief among Russian intelligence sources that since his arrival in Moscow three weeks ago, Snowden has been held in a former KGB dacha or country home. |  |
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Then we look into a new poll by Quinnipiac that finds a massive shift in public opinion against government surveillance following the revelations by Edward Snowden. Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac polls joins us to discuss the change from 2010 when by a 63 to 25 margin the public felt the government was not doing enough in restricting civil liberties in the name of anti-terrorism, to today where the public feels the government is going too far by a margin of 45 to 40. |
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Then we get an update on Texas Governor Perry and his sister Milla Perry Jones who is a lobbyist for United Surgical Partners that runs hospitals and surgical centers co-owned by doctors. Her clients are poised to make a windfall when the Texas Senate passes a restrictive anti-abortion bill tomorrow effectively shutting down the state’s abortion clinics and forcing women to go to the much more expensive surgical centers governor Perry’s sister represents. Veteran Texas political reporter James Moore the author of “Adios Mofo: Why Rick Perry will Make America miss George W Bush” joins us to discuss the Perry family’s double blessing of piety and profits. |
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Then finally we speak with Frederic Rich, the author of a new book, just out, “Christian Nation” that portrays an America that the Christian Right envisions, one that would have come to pass had John McCain become president in 2008 and died shortly thereafter making Sarah Palin President of the United States. We discuss this very plausible scenario of a Christian fascist takeover of America that is not unlike what is now underway in Texas and North Carolina. |
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July 10 - Texas Republicans Escalate Their War on Women; The Growing Hunger Strikes in California's Prisons; The 2013 Failed States Index
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We begin with the continuing drama in the Texas legislature where, following a dramatic filibuster by Senator Wendy Davis, the Republicans are now pushing through their restrictive abortion bill again and this time they forcibly removed a citizen who was testifying, Sarah Slamen, who joins us to discuss what she was about to say before State Troopers carried her out of the Texas Senate chamber. |  |
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Then we examine the growing hunger strike in California’s 33 prisons which are under a federal court order to reduce their overcrowded population by 10,000 which Governor Brown is resisting as he extends a three year deal with a private prison contractor Correctional Corporation of America, to house 8,200 inmates out of state. Paige St. John, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter with the Los Angeles joins us to discuss the 30,000 prisoners now on a hunger strike that coincides with Ramadan, and the standoff between the governor and the Federal Courts over California’s overcrowded prisons. |  |
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Finally, Patricia Taft, the Director of the Transnational Threats Program at the Fund For Peace joins us to discuss their new report just released, the 2013 Failed States Index that ranks the world’s 178 states from the worst like Somalia, with a “Very High Alert” status; to Chad, Yemen, Afghanistan, Haiti, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Cote d’Ivoire, Pakistan, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Nigeria with a “High Alert” status; all the way on to the Scandinavian countries that receive an extremely low instability rating. |  |
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