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2015 Program Archive
2015 Program Archive
July 9 - The Ghosts of the Confederacy Still Haunt Our Politics and Economy; The Clamor to Arm Ukraine; Jeb Bush is Way Out of Touch with Working Americans
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On a day when the South Carolina legislature voted to take down the Confederate flag, we will begin with shouting and jeering in the House of Representatives as Republicans tried to add an amendment to protect Confederate flags in national cemeteries. Michael Lind, a co-founder of the New America Foundation and author of “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States”, joins us to discuss how the ghosts of the confederacy haunts our politics today while the feudal Southern economic model that the civil war was fought to expunge, is alive and well today in the right-to-work states of the South.
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Then we analyze the testimony of the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs before the Senate where Marine General Joseph Dunford called Russia’s recent actions “nothing short of alarming” and went on to say that Russia posed an existential threat to the United States. Kimberly Marten, a professor of political science at Barnard College and a member of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute joins us to discuss the dangerous consequences of the U.S. providing Ukraine with lethal weapons which General Dunford said was a “reasonable” thing to do. |
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Then finally we examine Jeb Bush’s remarks in New Hampshire that “people need to work longer hours” to make America more productive. Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley joins us to discuss how out of touch Jeb Bush is with the realities facing working Americans. Particularly when his super PAC just released its latest fundraising numbers between January and June totally more than $103 million and according to the Bush campaign, Jeb made $28.5 million between 2007 when he left the Florida governorship, and 2013. |
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July 8 - The New York Stock Exchange Crashes While China's is in Free-Fall; Greece Will Submit "Credible Reform" Proposals; Why Russia Vetoed a U.N. Resolution on Genocide
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We begin with the technical error that halted trading on the New York Stock Exchange which is not being attributed to a cyber attack but is being called “a reported issue with gateway connection”. Wall Street veteran William Cohan, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair who writes a bi-weekly opinion column for The New York Times and is the author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World”, joins us to discuss how unnamed technical issues shut down the stock exchange, grounded United Airlines and crashed the Wall Street Journal’s home page all in the same day. |
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Then we speak with Harry Konstantinidis, who teaches economics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He joins us to discuss the narrow window of time the Greek government has to end the debt crisis following Prime Minister Alex Tsipras’ promise that his government will submit “credible reform” proposals on Thursday’s deadline set by European leaders. |
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Then finally on the 20th anniversary of the massacre of 8,000 Muslim boys and men at Srebrenica in Bosnia, we look into Russia’s veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the worst atrocity in Europe since World War 11 as a “crime of genocide”. John Quigley, a Professor Emeritus of Law at Ohio State University who was a research scholar at Moscow State University, joins us to discuss why Russia, which suffered so much at the hands of the genocidal Nazis, felt it necessary to veto the crime of genocide resolution. |
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July 7 - Why Local Law Enforcement and Federal Immigration Authorities Don't Cooperate; China's Free-Falling Stock Market; Negotiations Between the Greek and European Finance Ministers Go Nowhere
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We begin with the shooting at a popular tourist site in San Francisco of a young woman out for a stroll with her father that has erupted into a contentious national debate on immigration. Since the shooter has been deported five times, and was freed from jail despite a request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take him into custody, this tragedy has led critics to question San Francisco’s sanctuary policy. Doris Meissner, a former Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service who is now is a Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, joins us to discuss the extent to which local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities do not cooperate and why. |
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Then we examine the Chinese stock market that has been in free-fall for three weeks, losing about 30% of its value since June 12. Victor Shih, a Professor of Political Science in the 21st Century China Program at the University of California, San Diego who has been published widely on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies and exchange rates, joins us to discuss why government efforts to stabilize the market by slashing interest rates, curbing IPO’s and having major brokerage houses pump in more capital, so far have not worked. |
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Then finally we go to Athens, Greece for an update on emergency negotiations between the new Greek finance minister and his European counterparts that went nowhere amid warnings by German Chancellor Merkel that “it is no longer about weeks, but a matter of days” left to make a deal. Dimitri Papadimitriou, the President of the Levy Economics Institute joins us to discuss when and if a plan will materialize to get an agreement as Greece runs out of time and money, while the Europeans run out of patience. |
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July 7 - Mixed Messages From the Greek Referendum; Obama's Remarks at the Pentagon; Refiners Gouge California's Motorists
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We begin with the unexpectedly robust voice of the Greek people expressed in this weekend’s referendum by a margin of 61% to 39%, rejecting the punitive austerity regime imposed by Greece’s Northern European creditors. A former political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Greece, John Brady Kiesling, the first of three U.S. Foreign Service Officers to resign in protest of the Iraq war, joins us from Athens to discuss the mixed message of pride and indignation felt as the country makes a stand against its creditors, along with a deep concern that Greece remain in the Eurozone and that a deal must be made to do so.
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Then we look into the president’s remarks today at the Pentagon where Obama met will his military chiefs to assess the campaign against the self-declared Islamic State following this weekend’s most intensive U.S. bombing strikes so far around the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. Nicholas Heras, a Middle East researcher at the Center for a New American Security joins us to discuss the strategic confusion of both the U.S. and the Assad regime’s air forces bombing ISIS, while the U.S. is committed to removing the Assads from power. |
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Then finally we speak with Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog and author of “The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws And Get the Change You Voted For – A Direct Democracy Tool Kit”. He joins us to discuss the manipulation of the price of gasoline in California, the nation’s highest, by an oligopoly of oil refiners who routinely shut down refineries to drive up the price of gas while exporting record amounts of fuel to other countries.
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July 5 - A Call to Turn Independence Day into Inter-Dependence Day; U.S. Presidents Today Have More Power than George III Did in 1776; How Free Do African Americans Feel Today?
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Today on this 4th of July holiday weekend we assess where we stand as a national in terms of our freedom and our ability to pursue happiness in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We begin with Rabbi Michael Lerner, the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in San Francisco, editor of Tikkun magazine and author with Cornel West of “Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin”. We discuss his article at The Huffington Post “Turn Independence Day July 4 into Inter-Dependence Day”. Instead of celebrating “bombs bursting in air” Rabbi Lerner calls for us to “transform the July 3-5 holiday to celebrate our interdependence with all human beings on this planet and our interdependence with the Earth, our badly abused planet.” |
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Then we examine where we stand today in terms of the freedoms proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer who was formerly a Deputy Associate Attorney General in the Reagan Administration and is the author of “American Empire: Before the Fall”, joins us to discuss whether U.S. presidents today have more power over us than King George the Third had over the American colonies, a tyranny that led to the American revolution and the Declaration of Independence in 1776. |
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Then finally we speak with Bernard Powers, a Professor of History at the College of Charleston who has published numerous works on African American social and cultural evolution. We discuss the extent to which African Americans feel free today to pursue happiness, especially in South Carolina the scene of a recent massacre at the historic AME church and across the South where a number of African American churches have been recently burned down. |
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