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2013 Program Archive
March 11- From Reverence to Rancor in Venezuela; Is Fascism Returning to Europe?; How the Fortune 500 Stashes Profits Offshore to Avoid Taxes
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We begin and go to Caracas, Venezuela for an update on the sudden change from reverence and mourning the death of President Chavez to bare-knuckle politics with the announcement of an election in 30 days that has the anointed Vice President Maduro calling his opponent Capriles a fascist and Capriles taunting Maduro by saying “the people didn’t vote for you kid”. Virginia Lopez, who covers Venezuela for the UK Guardian and Britain’s Sky TV joins us to discuss how much the decks are stacked in favor of the “Chavistas”. |
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Then we get an alarming report from an expert on Hungarian politics Kim Scheppele, the Director of the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She did research at the Constitutional Court of Hungary where today the ruling right wing government erased all of the Constitutional Court’s decisions, removing any checks and balances on a government that is displaying fascist tendencies and certainly tolerating, if not encouraging extremist attacks on gypsies and homeless people, activities that have an eerie echo of Germany in the 1930’s. |
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Then finally, at a time when 85 billion dollars in sequester cuts are dominating the debate, we get an accounting of how many trillions America’s Fortune 500 companies are hiding in profits stashed offshore to avoid taxes. Matthew Gardner, the Executive Director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and an analyst with Citizens for Tax Justice joins us to discuss the enormous amounts of profits GE, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Google and others hide offshore to avoid paying taxes. |
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March 10 - The War Within the War on Terror; Filibustering the New Head of the CIA; Rage on the Right and Outrage on the Left
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We begin with the capture in Jordan and the trial in New York of Osama Bin Laden’s son-in-law that is reviving the war within the so-called war on terror, with Republican Senator Lindsay Graham vowing to make sure Sulaiman Abu Gaith is tried in Guantanamo. Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst and author of “Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for Bin Laden – From 9/11 to Abbottabad” joins us to discuss the battle over Guantanamo that the president has vowed to close and Republican senators seem determined to keep open. |
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Then we look into the issues raised by Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster against the new head of the CIA over the use of drones in assassinating American citizens, that have made Rand Paul something of a hero on the political left while at the same time his message resonates with his true base of support on the libertarian right and among anti-government militia groups. Paul Pillar, the CIA’s former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia joins us to discuss the Central Intelligence Agency’s more Para-military role that John Brennan is inheriting and when and how concerns over drones that American citizens on the left and right have will be satisfactorily addressed. |
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Then finally we examine the new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center on the four year explosive growth of conspiracy-minded anti-government “Patriot” groups that have intensified rage on the right against America’s first black president. Criminologist, civil rights attorney and professor of Criminal Justice Brian Levin joins us. He was Associate Director of Legal Affairs of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Klanwatch/Militia Task Force in Montgomery, Alabama. |
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March 7 - Could Sanctions That Bite North Korea Bite Back?; The Killer in Corporate Food; How the Filibuster Ensures a Right Wing Judiciary
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We begin with North Korea’s bellicose response to a new round of UN sanctions imposed as a result of a recent North Korean nuclear test. Charles Armstrong, the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University and author of the forthcoming book “Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World 1950 to 1990”, joins us to discuss North Korea’s threat of a nuclear strike against the United States. |
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Then we speak with Dr Robert Lustig the country’s leading expert on childhood obesity and its connection to high fructose corn syrup and sugar that is prominent in processed food. We discuss Dr Lustig’s new book “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease” and whether American consumers can free themselves from the corporate food products that are killing them. |
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Then finally we examine the latest filibuster against President Obama’s nominee to fill John Robert’s seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit that has been vacant since 2005 due to the routine and consistent use of the filibuster by Republican Senators. Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean and distinguished professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law joins us to discuss how Mitch McConnell’s brazen obstruction of Obama’s judicial nominees has slanted the federal judiciary in a heavily conservative direction. |
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March 6 - Obama Breaks Bread with Reasonable Republicans; Fukushima Two Years Later; Kenya's Post-Election Dispute could Explode
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As the president breaks bread with a group of Republican senators in an effort to find a way around the sequester stalemate, we begin with a look into whether the deficit-cutting mania that led to the sequester is losing steam as cuts begin to ripple through the economy and perhaps come home to roost in mid-term elections when deficit hawks may have to explain to their constituents why frustrating President Obama’s ability to govern is more important than America’s economic recovery. Jeff Madrick, who writes a column on economics for Harpers and is the author of “Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America 1970 to the Present” joins us to discuss whether Obama can find enough adults in the room to avoid more self-inflicted economic wounds. |
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Then we speak with Dr Helen Caldicott who is organizing a major international symposium in New York on next week's second anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. We discuss the mounting medical and ecological consequences of the multiple meltdowns in Japan that will cost over 100 billion dollars to clean up over the next 40 years and what lesson have been learned two years later with 23 boiling water reactors similar to Fukushima still operating in the United States. |
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Then finally we get an update on the disputed elections in Kenya, where the front-runner Uhuru Kenyetta, who is due to stand trial before the International Criminal Court for fueling the violence that killed over a thousand people after the 2007 election, has accused the British High Commissioner of shadowy and suspicious involvement in the counting of ballots. Nii Akuetteh, an independent researcher and analyst on Africa joins us to discuss the possibility of the dispute over spoiled ballots turning violent. |
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March 5 - The Death of a Revolutionary; Filling the Political Vacuum in Venezuela; Should Israel be Exempt from Sequester Cuts?
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We begin with the death today of Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez, at the age of 58 after a long battle with cancer. Javier Corrales, the author of “Dragon of the Tropics: Hugo Chavez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela” joins us to discuss the regional impact of the leader of the Bolivarian revolution Hugo Chavez, whose mentor Fidel Castro credits with saving the Cuban Revolution. |
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Then we look further into the legacy of Hugo Chavez with Jennifer McCoy the director of the Carter Center’s America’s Program. She previously directed the Carter Center’s project on Mediation and Monitoring in Venezuela and we discuss the emotional and political vacuum left in Venezuela following the death of their larger-than-life leader whose successors are not likely to fill the void but nevertheless will carry on with the Bolivarian revolution. |
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Then finally we discuss the AIPAC convention underway in Washington DC where incredibly the pro-Israel lobby is seeking to make military aid to Israel exempt from the sequester cuts, even though Israel’s economy is in better shape than America’s and its latest military technology like Iron Dome, partly subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, is more advanced than ours. MJ Rosenberg who served as Director of Policy Analysis for the Israel Policy Forum and previously was editor of Near East Report, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC’s) bi-weekly publication on Middle East policy, joins us. |
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