Full Program

Part 1

We begin with a profile of Paul Ryan who is being depicted in the press as a moderate who can bridge the divide between the Republican establishment and the Tea Party’s “Freedom Caucus”, the man on the white horse who is riding to the rescue of the Republicans who can’t find someone to replace the House Speaker and the Speaker designate.  Jonathan Chait, a writer for New York magazine who was previously a senior editor at the New Republic who has extensively profiled Paul Ryan, joins us to discuss his latest article at New York magazine “Paul Ryan Says He Will Serve As House Speaker, Maybe” and how Ryan is being portrayed as, quoting Jonathan Chait, “an earnest, fiscally responsible wonk who wants to make government more efficient, as opposed to a devotee of Ayn Rand determined to stop government from taking rich people’s money”.  

Part 2

Then we examine further the enduring influence of Ayn Rand over right wing politics in America with Gary Weiss, a journalist and the author of two books probing the underside of finances, “Wall Street Versus America” and “Born to Steal”. He was an award-winning investigative reporter for Business Week and his latest book is “Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America’s Soul”.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Cora Currier, a reporter at The Intercept who focuses on national security, foreign affairs and human rights. She is a lead author of The Intercept’s just-released investigative report “The Drone Papers” where she wrote the article “The Kill Chain: The Lethal Bureaucracy Behind Obama’s Drone War” and we discuss the findings in the study by the Pentagon’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Task Force that The Intercept obtained.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the elections today in Canada that will decide whether incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper will get a fourth term or whether Justin Trudeau, the son of a former prime minister will lead his Liberal Party to victory ending a ten year stretch of conservative rule in Canada. Cleo Paskal, a Visiting Trudeau Fellow at the University of Montreal’s Center for International Studies joins us to discuss why the Canadian left and center left are split between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, thus giving the conservatives an easy electoral advantage.

Part 2

Then, on the day that the U.S. Congress returns to work, we speak with Edward Kleinbard, a Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford University who served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. Since the government will run out of money in early November, we discuss Ed’s article “Our Debt Ceiling Nightmare” and look into the much more serious implications of a debt-ceiling crisis as opposed to a government shutdown that calls into question our ability to govern ourselves, because when our government dishonors its financial obligations, a global financial and economic crisis is triggered, inflicting permanent damage on the dollar as a global reserve currency.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the foiled attempt by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime to get countries to consider decriminalizing the possession and use of all drugs, a proposal that was withdrawn after pressure from a powerful member nation, likely the United States. Steve Rolles, a Senio5r Policy Analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation in the U.K., joins us to discuss efforts to change government drug policies ahead of a meeting on the “World Drug Problem” at the U.N. General Assembly next April.