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2013 Program Archive
March 4 - The New Secretary of Energy; "How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour"; Kenya's Ruling Class
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We begin with an assessment of Ernest Moniz, President Obama’s choice to be the next Secretary of Energy. Tyson Slocum, the Director of the Energy Program at Public Citizen joins us to discuss the choice of the physicist who is currently Director of MIT’s Energy Initiative, a research group that gets funding from BP, Chevron and Saudi Aramco. |
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Then, with the publication today of the new list of billionaires from Forbes, we will speak with Les Leopold, the author of a new book “How to Make a Million Dollars an Hour: Why Hedge Funds Get Away with Siphoning Off America’s Wealth”. Now that the Republicans have again gone to the mat to protect the tax loopholes that allow hedge fund managers to accrue astonishing wealth while paying less taxes than their secretaries, we discuss what it is that hedge funds do and why they are able to pull down astounding sums in minutes. |
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Then finally, as counting begins in the Kenyan elections, we examine the revolving door between the political classes that rule Kenya, often inciting violence to further their power, but ultimately taking care of themselves and not the voters they promise to take care of. Georges Nzongola, professor of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina joins us to discuss the lack of ethnic violence so far, compared to the last election, which could change as election results are announced. |
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March 3 - Navigating Between Egypt's Government and Opposition; How America's Corporate Food Cartel is Killing Us; Assad's Latest Delusion
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We begin with an update on secretary of State Kerry’s visit to Egypt where he is trying the reach out to both the opposition and government to end the political impasse and economic freefall. A specialist on Egypt at the Brookings Institution, Khaled Elgindy joins us to discuss the new Secretary of State’s delicate mission to revive a revolution at the crossroads, facing an opposition largely convinced that America has colluded with the Islamists to create a new dictatorship. |
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Then we look at how the food giants have hooked America on the poison they peddle in the name of nutrition. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Michael Moss joins us to discuss his explosive new book “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us”. We discuss how the corporate food cartel manipulates nutrition to fatten their bottom line, and the extent to which the food monopolies know they are responsible for America’s obesity epidemic, but rather than eliminate sugar, salt and fat from processed food, they are encouraging the addictions of their heavy users that feed their profits. |
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Then finally we go the Syrian/Turkish border to speak with Rafif Jouejati, the English-language spokesperson for the Syrian Local Coordination Committees, the umbrella group of the Syrian opposition. With the noose apparently tightening on the embattled regime, we discuss the latest claims made by the dictator Assad in an interview with the London Sunday Times that the British Foreign Secretary has called delusional. |
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February 28 - A New Financial Transaction Tax Will Cover One Third of the Sequester; A Veteran Investigative Journalist Takes us Inside the Church of Scientology
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We begin with the Wall Street Trading and Speculators Tax Act introduced today by Senator Tom Harkin that would generate $352 billion in revenues over nine years. Micah Hauptman, the Financial Policy Counsel at Public Citizen joins us to discuss how a tax of 3 cents on every $100 of speculative trading via high speed computers could bring “human” investors back, stabilize markets and reduce predatory trading. |
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Then Lawrence Wright joins us in the studio. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of a new book, just out, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief”. We discuss this new and incredibly wealthy church that the IRS has designated as a tax-exempt religion, to try to determine its secret belief systems and what it contributes to mankind as a religion. We investigate the brutal and sadistic tactics it employs against its own followers and former members. And while many of its members, who are trapped in secret locations work around the clock for slave wages, the Church’s leader lives the lavish lifestyle of a billionaire, cultivating Scientology’s celebrity front-men Tom Cruise and John Travolta. |
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February 27 - Supreme's Appear Ready to Strike Down Key Part of Voting Rights Act; Whitey Bulger and the Intersection of Crime and Politics; How America's Self-Inflicted Economic Wound is Seen from Abroad
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We begin with today’s Supreme Court arguments over striking down Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires nine states with a history of discrimination to seek prior approval from the Justice Department to change their election laws. Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center, who frequently participates in Supreme Court litigation, joins us. We discuss early indications that Scalia and other conservatives on the court are itching to turn back the clock. |
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Then we speak with veteran crime reporter with the Boston Globe, Shelly Murphy, the author of the new book “Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt that Brought Him to Justice.” We discuss little known aspects of the case such a Bulger’s participation in the CIA’s MKUltra LSD experiments, the extent of corruption and criminal complicity in the FBI that enabled C-4 explosives to be shipped to the IRA, and the most-wanted fugitive’s final capture in Santa Monica. |
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Then finally, we go to London to get a perspective on how America’s impending self-inflicted economic wound is seen from abroad and how the Europeans are reacting to the re-emergence of Berlusconi and political paralysis he brings to the Eurozone’s third largest economy that threatens to unravel modest gains made so far in stabilizing the Euro. Economist Stephany Griffith Jones joins us to discuss the devastating effect austerity has had in Europe. Yet in spite of the warnings, the world’s largest economy is poised to drink the same poison. |
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February 26 - The 83 Billion a Year Subsidy to the Big Banks; How Austerity Reverses Recovery; A Vulture Capitalist gets Preferential Treatment
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We begin with today’s grilling of the Chairman of the Fed by freshman Senator Elizabeth Warren over the extent to which the big banks are too big to fail and whether they deserve an 83 billion dollar subsidy that is about the same as the impending sequester cuts. Jennifer Taub, a professor at the Vermont School of Law and former Associate General Counsel for Fidelity Investments joins us to discuss how the big banks are smashing the little banks, something that Ben Bernanke told Senator Warren he agreed with 100%. |
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Then we speak with economist Richard Wolff about the irony that the politician responsible for the European banks imposing austerity on Italy, has made a comeback as the anti-austerity champion and now threatens to unravel the slow and painful gains Europe has made in stabilizing the Euro. We also discuss a very similar situation here in the United States where the gradual recovery of our economy devastated since 2008 from the Wall Street crash, is likely to be reversed by House Republicans in the next few days. |
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Then finally we examine what is at stake in a Federal Appeals Court case tomorrow in Manhattan where the U.S. Government has joined in the defense of Argentina to prevent vulture capitalists from undoing a settlement between Argentina and its creditors. Eric LeCompte, the director of the Jubilee USA Network joins us to explain how vulture capitalists like Paul Singer, who buy Third World debt for pennies on the dollar, are able to get a Federal judge to give them priority in getting 100% of the debt repaid in full ahead of other lenders and creditors who have agreed to settle for much less. |
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