Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
2013 Program Archive
May 2 - Obama's Meeting With Mexico's New President; The Counter-Terrorism Boondoggle; A Former FCC Commissioner Speaks Out
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with President Obama’s trip to Mexico to meet with its new President Enrique Pena Nieto. George Grayson, who writes a weekly colum for the Mexican magazine “Milenio Semanal” and is the author of “The Executioner’s Men: Los Zetas, Rogue Soldiers, Criminal Entrepreneurs, and the Shadow State They Created” joins us to discuss the issues the two presidents will be dealing with, in particular the new approach to the failed war on drugs that Pena Nieto is taking. |
 |
|
|
Then we examine the bloated and dysfunctional counter-terrorism boondoggle the U.S. has developed since 9/11 that relies on technology that does not work and failed to detect the Boston bombers in spite of Russian Intelligence alerting the FBI and the CIA that one of the bombers had ties to radical groups. Mark Perry, the author of “Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage with its Enemies” joins us to discuss the difference between amateur and real terrorism as outlined in his article at Foreign Policy “The Driver: An Exclusive Look Inside the Mysterious Death and Life of the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist not Named Osama Bin Laden”. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak with a former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson about Obama’s choice to head up the FCC and how money bundlers for presidential candidates are normally rewarded with Ambassadorships to small countries, not given critically important posts like heading up the FCC that impact the lives of all Americans. |
 |
Tags:
May 1 - Charges Against Classmates of the Boston Bomber; Obama's Nominee to Head up the FCC; The Corporatization and Commodification of Food
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Michael Rezendes who has been covering the Boston bombings from the beginning and the dynamics of the Tsarnaev family since. We look into the three college classmates of Dzhokar Tsarnaev who were charged today with hindering the investigation by destroying evidence and making false statements. |
 |
|
|
Then we assess how much Tom Wheeler, President Obama’s nominee to head up the FCC, will be a champion of the public interest or an advocate for corporate control which his professional background as a lobbyist for the telecommunication industry would suggest. Timothy Karr, the Senior Director of Strategy for Free Press joins us to discuss the critical issues before the new FCC chairman that will determine the future of the public’s free access to the Internet and whether the public interest will be asserted over increasingly dominant corporate influence. |
 |
|
|
Then finally the Executive Director of Food and Water Watch Wenonah Hauter joins us for an update on the so-called Monsanto Protection Act that was inserted as a rider in the recently-passed continuing resolution to keep the government funded. We look into the extraordinary political clout of the food giants that Wenonah has written about in her new book “Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America”. |
 |
Tags:
April 30 - Dragging Obama into Syria; How Republicans Block Obama's Judicial Nominations; What is Killing off the Honey Bees?
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We will begin with Syria which dominated today’s press conference by the president who was asked whether his red line had been crossed by the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime. An expert on Syria, Henri Barkey, who was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department joins us to discuss the mounting pressure on a reluctant president to intervene in the Syrian disaster. |
 |
|
|
Then we will examine why there is a record backlog of judicial appointments the Obama Administration is trying to fill. Michelle Schwartz, the Director of Justice Programs at the Alliance for Justice, joins us. Her organization just issued a report on how Republican Senators are not only blocking Obama’s judicial nominations by the arbitrary use of the filibuster, they are refusing to recommend potential federal judges in the first place. |
 |
|
|
Then, following a European Commission ban on a class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, which are believed to be the cause of the alarming Colony Collapse Disorder that is killing off bees that pollinate most of the fruits and vegetables we eat, we will look into what is causing the die-off of over 50% of America’s bees. Paul Towers, a spokesman for the Pesticide Action Network and Charles Benbrook, a research professor at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources join us to examine what is killing off the world’s honey bees. |
|
Tags:
April 29 - The CIA as Karzai's Bagman; Riling up one Billion Muslims; The Latest Anti-intellectual Assault on Science
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with revelations in Monday’s New York Times that for decades Afghan President Karzai has been receiving tens of millions in secret monthly cash payments from the CIA. Christine Fair, a former United Nations political officer in Afghanistan, who is a Senior Fellow with the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point, joins us to discuss where the money went and what the U.S. got in exchange for these payments of taxpayer money. |
 |
|
|
Then we speak with a former CIA Station Chief in Kabul, Afghanistan, Graham Fuller, who is the author of “The Future of Political Islam” and “A World Without Islam”. We discuss the legacy of our recent intervention in Iraq, which appears poised to resume a civil war, and Afghanistan, where, after the U.S. withdrawal in 2014 the country will likely revert to civil war. Having riled up one billion Muslims from our failed and futile interventions in Muslim lands, we examine the possibility of future blowback. |
 |
|
|
Then finally, in remarks today on the 150th anniversary of the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama promised to protect science research from politics at a time when Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who is chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is demanding that the National Science Foundation justify its research. Jon Cohen, who is a correspondent with Science Magazine and author of “Almost Chimpanzee: Searching for What Makes us Human, in Rainforests, Labs, Sanctuaries, and Zoos”, joins us to discuss the latest anti-intellectual assault on science. |
 |
Tags:
April 28 - Did Syria Cross Obama's Red Line?; The Bush Legacy Selectively Revised; Angry White Men Get Their Way
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the president’s red line with Syria which may have been crossed with a limited use of the chemical weapon Sarin. A former UN Special Commission chemical and biological inspector in Iraq, Raymond Zilinskas, who directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies, joins us. We discuss UN efforts to get a team of inspectors into Syria that the Assads are blocking, and what might be done to secure Syria’s substantial WMD arsenal from use by either the regime or the rebels. |
 |
|
|
Then we look into the historical legacy of George W. Bush that his former spokesperson and Fox News pundits are now revising, to suggest that Bush kept us safe from terrorists while Obama did not. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff who served in the Bush White House, joins us to discuss the glaring omission of 9/11 from this latest revisionist history and how much Bush and Cheney are helped by the 9/11 “truthers” propagating conspiracy theories shared by the Boston bombers, that serve to cover up Bush and Cheney’s reckless endangerment of the United States for failing to prevent 9/11. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we are joined by Joan Walsh, editor-at-large for Salon.com and an MSNBC analyst. She is the author of a new book just out in paperback “What’s the Matter With White People? Finding our Way in the Next America”. We discuss the domination of our politics by a minority of angry white men who have prevented sensible gun safety measures that 90% of Americans favor, and what can be done to restore majority rule in the United States government. |
 |
Tags:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App