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2013 Program Archive
July 9 - Is Venezuela Laying Out the Red Carpet for Snowden?; Media Proxy Wars in Egypt; Bringing the War "Home" to Hezbollah
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We begin with the possibility that Venezuela will be laying out the red carpet for Edward Snowden and go to Caracas, Venezuela to speak with David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office of Latin America who has taught at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello. We discuss the likely impact of Venezuela taking in Snowden at a time when there were signs of improvement in relations between the U.S. and the Maduro government. |  |
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Then we speak with an expert on the Arab media, Marwan Kraidy, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Arab Television Industries”. With Al Jazeera banned from press conferences by Egyptian journalists and the Saudi’s Al Arabiya the mouthpiece for Egypt’s Salafist Al Nour party, we discuss the outside influence of rival Saudi-backed and Qatari-backed TV networks in shaping and covering the coup underway in Egypt. |
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Then finally, following today’s car bombing in a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut, we look into the possibility of the proxy war next door in Syria spreading into Lebanon, in retaliation to Hezbollah’s brigades joining in the Syrian civil war. Beirut-based freelance writer and editor Emily Dische-Becker joins us to discuss whether the Free Syrian Army is making good on its threat to bring the war “home” to Hezbollah. |
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July 8 - Is Saudi Arabia Behind the Coup in Egypt?; Petitioning the Supreme Court to Stop Spying on Americans; Deregulating the $700 Trillion Derivatives Market
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We begin with the capture of the counterrevolution against the Morsi government by the Egyptian army and the Mubarak era police, which appears to have been financed and encouraged by the Saudi Arabian monarchy determined to sabotage Egypt’s democratic experiment for fear it will spread to their autocratic kingdom. Islamic scholar Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl, the author of “The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists”, joins us to discuss the growing death toll of young Egyptians and his article in Monday’s New York Times, “The Perils of a People’s Coup”. |  |
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Then we speak with Marc Rotenberg, the President and Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, EPIC, who today petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the NSA’s spying on American citizens arguing that the FISA court had exceeded its authority under section 215 of the Patriot Act. We discuss EPIC’s petition to the highest court that directly challenges the NSA's authority to sweep up domestic communications. |  |
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Finally, we will examine the latest effort to kill the Dodd-Frank financial reforms that resulted from the 2008 crash. Dennis Kelleher, the President of Better Markets, a nonprofit that promotes the public interest in the U.S. and global financial markets, joins us to discuss the House bill derisively know as the “London Whale Loophole Act” that would eviscerate regulation over the 700 trillion dollar derivatives market. |  |
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July 7 - The Old Guard Tries to Capture the Counter Revolution; Snowden and the Anti-American Axis; Brazen Attempt to Undo Consumer Regulations
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We begin in Cairo, Egypt for the latest insight into the chaos that has followed the intervention by the army that was supposed to prevent the chaos engulfing this divided country. One of the organizers of the revolution two years ago, Jawad Nabulsi, a businessman turned community organizer who was shot and is blind in one eye, joins us. We discuss the role of the old guard Mubarak police who are now trying to capture the counter-revolution against the Islamists by going after both the Islamists and activists like Jawad who brought about the original revolution. |
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Then we speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Leslie Gelb who was Assistant Secretary of State in the Carter Administration and is the author of “Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy”. We discuss China and Russia’s role in the Snowden case and Leslie Gelb’s article in Sunday’s New York Times “A New Anti-American Axis” that argues Russia and China now see less cost in challenging the United States and fewer rewards for acting as a partner. |
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Then finally we look into the latest effort by Wall Street to overturn efforts at financial reform that were enacted in the wake of the 2008 crash. Bartlett Naylor, the former chief of investigations for the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and financial policy advocate for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch joins us to discuss the brazen Senate bill, the Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act introduced by Senators Portman and Collins and Democrat Mark Warner that would neutralize and render impotent the Security and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. |
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July 4 - Patriotism to Protect and Defend the Planet; An Alternative to the Right Wing Usurpation of Patriotism; What the Founding Fathers Meant by Patriotism
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We begin on this 4th of July with a conversation on the meaning of patriotism and the possibility that a deeper form of patriotism is required to protect and defend planet earth that is threatened by climate change from global warming. Robert Jensen, a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas and author of “Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialog” joins us. He has an article at YES! Magazine “Get Apocalyptic: Why Radical in the New Normal”.
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Then we speak with George Lakoff, Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at UC Berkeley and author of “Don’t Think of an Elephant”. We discuss the usurpation of patriotism by the right wing in America and whether qualities other than militarism, chauvinism and jingoism can be celebrated on the 4th of July such as empathy, community, charity and generosity. |
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July 3 - Snowden's Father's Lawyer on Wikileaks; Could the Press be Liable for Reporting on Snowden?; The Big Business-Friendly Supreme Court
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We begin with Bruce Fein, the legal counsel for Lon Snowden, Edward Snowden’s father, and discuss the open letter they have written to the young American fugitive who is the subject of a worldwide manhunt. Bruce Fein is the author of “American Empire: Before the Fall’ and was a senior policy advisor to the Ron Paul 2012 campaign. |  |
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Then we speak with Frank Snepp a former CIA officer and whistleblower whose book “A Decent Interval” became the basis of the landmark Supreme Court decision U.S. v. Snepp that defines the legal rights and risks of U.S. intelligence employees who become whistleblowers. We discuss the Snowden case with someone who has had the Supreme Court throw the book at them and discuss Frank Snepp’s article at CNN “Snowden and a Muzzled Free Press”. |
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Then finally, with the majority of public sentiment firmly against the recent overturning the Voting Rights Act, we look into the role of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts as the leading strategist for the Republican Party as some have charged. Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean and distinguished professor of law at the University of California Irvine School of Law, joins us to discuss his article on the Robert’s court in Monday’s New York Times “Justice For Big Business”. |
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