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2016 Programs
2016 Program Archive
May 14 - When Government Lies Are Not Uncovered, We End Up With Disasters Like Iraq; The Film that Exposed the Epidemic of Rape in the Military; Mixed Signals from Republicans on Immigration Reform
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We begin with a veteran investigative reporter specializing in national security issues, James Bamford, the author of “The Shadow Factory: Inside the Ultra-Secret NSA, from 9/11 to Spying on America”. We discuss the DOJ’s snooping on the AP and the implications it has for journalists trying to uncover government secrets and how, more often than not, when government lies are not uncovered, we end up with disasters like Iraq. |
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Then we speak with the Academy Award nominated director of “The Invisible War”, Kirby Dick, about how his documentary, as an example of advocacy journalism, has had a profound effect on uncovering the epidemic of sexual assault in the military, revelations that just last week were vindicated by a Pentagon report that estimates 26,000 sex crimes took place last year in the armed forces, a number that is likely to much lower than the actual number of assaults because so few are reported because of fear of retaliation where the victim often is blamed. |
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Then finally, we look into Republican attempts at immigration reform that are driven by their fear that demographics will make them a permanent minority party unless they can appeal to the fast-growing Latino constituency. Molly Worthen, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, who had an article in Sunday’s New York Times, “Love Thy Stranger as Thyself”, joins us to discuss how the Christian right is trying to embrace immigration reform within a Party in which a majority of Republicans stigmatize Latinos as being a burden; taking jobs, housing and healthcare from white Americans. |
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May 13 - Is the DOJ's Snooping on the AP an Attack on Freedom of the Press?; The President Tries to Slap Down Benghazi; Did the IRS Target the Tea Party?
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We look into the breaking story that the Justice Department secretly collected two months of telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press. Ben Wizner, the Director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project joins us to examine charges made in a letter the AP sent to the Attorney General expressing their outrage. |
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Then we assess the two stories in the news that the Republicans and Fox News have seized on and amplified, inviting further Congressional hearings by the Republican Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa. A former Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence, Wayne White, a friend and colleague of the slain American Ambassador to Libya, joins us to discuss the President’s remarks at today’s White House press conference with the British Prime Minister where Obama castigated Republicans for dishonoring those who died at Benghazi by turning it into “a political circus”. Having called it “a sideshow”, we discuss the President’s effort to dismiss the trumped up cover-up story that the Republicans are trying to keep alive to apparently damage Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee in 2016. |
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Then finally, with talk of impeaching Obama and charges of political thuggery in the air, we look into the other major trumped up scandal that is brewing over an effort by mid-level IRS employees to deal with the flood of 501c-4 tax-exempt applications from largely Republican front groups claiming to be involved in “social welfare” that have been unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Ellen Aprill, a professor of tax law at Loyola Law School, along with Brian Galle, a professor of tax law at Boston College of Law, join us to discuss whether the IRS’s apology for flagging tax-exempt applications from groups using the words “tea party” or “patriot” that was more extensive than the IRS Commissioner Douglas Schulman first reported to Congress, will dampen Tea Party threats to sue the IRS. |
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May 12 - An Anthropologist Who Uncovered Genocide in Guatemala; The Highest Level of CO2 in 3.6 Million Years; The Broken Liberal Narrative and How to Fix It
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We begin with justice delayed since the 1980’s until last Friday, with an 80 year sentence given to Guatemalan General Rios Montt for genocide. Cultural anthropologist Victoria Sanford, who has spent the past 20 years uncovering evidence of genocide in Guatemala, joins us to discuss the fight for justice for the Mayan people, 200,000 of whom were slaughtered by a military, who along with an entrenched oligarchy, still rule this cruel and corrupt narco-state. |
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Then we look into the alarming findings from the Scripps Oceanographic Institute’s Observatory on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa that now measure CO2 in the atmosphere at 400 parts per million, the highest the earth has seen in 3.6 million years. Dr Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists joins us to discuss the significance of this finding of the rapid rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is further evidence, as if we needed it, of global warming, climate change and rising sea levels on an endangered planet. |
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Then finally we speak with Dr Amitai Etzioni, professor of International Affairs and Director of the Institute for Communitarian Studies at George Washington University. We discuss his latest article at The Atlantic, “The Liberal Narrative is Broken, and Only Populism Can Fix It” and the fact that for every one liberal in America there are two conservatives, and that current ideas liberals have about changing that uncomfortable political equation are delusional. |
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May 9 - Could Syria Be Iran's Vietnam?; The Prospect for Peace in Syria; Campaigning Against Corruption in Pakistan
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We begin with an analysis of whether Syria will be Iran’s Vietnam as Tehran’s support for the Assad regime deepens in a civil war that could become a quagmire for “The Axis of Resistance”. Beirut-based journalist Thanassis Cambanis joins us. The author of “A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel”, he has a forthcoming article at Foreign Policy “Syria, Iran’s Vietnam? How the Civil War in Syria is a Quagmire for “The Axis of Resistance”. |
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Then we examine the possibility that the upcoming peace talks Secretary of State Kerry brokered with the Russians might end the bloody standoff in Syria that has cost over 80,000 live and destroyed much of the country. Investigative journalist Robert Dreyfuss, the author of “Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam”, joins us to discuss his article at The Nation, “The First Good News for Syria”. |
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Then finally we assess the likely outcome of Saturday’s elections in Pakistan where the charismatic leader of the new PTI party Imran Khan fell 15 feet from a crane at a rally and is recuperating in hospital. Sameer Dossani, who formerly worked for Amnesty International, joins us to discuss Imran’s Khan’s anti-corruption campaign and how it might effect his chances of joining a coalition government headed by one of the two major parties that are mired in corruption. |
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May 8 - Mother's Day Protest to Close Guantanamo; Cyber-Capture of Our Drones and Missiles; Facebook Founder's Deceptive Political Campaign
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We begin with the co-founder and co-director of CODEPINK, Jodie Evans, and discuss plans that the peace, environment, women’s rights and social justice activist has to celebrate Mother’s Day. We discuss Thursday’s “Close Gitmo Now” rally at the West Los Angeles Federal Building and the continuing stain that America’s gulag at Guantanamo is for the United States overseas, and the perversion of justice it represents as it undermines our values at home. |
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Then we analyze the recently-released report by the Pentagon on China’s military capabilities and discuss the Administration’s public efforts to call out China on its widespread use of cyber-espionage that targets American corporate and government secrets. Alan Paller, the director of research at the SANS Institute who issues the annual “Greatest Risks to Cyber Security” study, joins us to discuss growing concerns that America’s drones and missiles can be captured in cyber attacks and re-directed to targets chosen by our adversaries. |
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Then finally we look into the deceptive political campaign organized by Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and other tech billionaires, that is supposed to be about promoting immigration reform, but has instead financed TV ads that slam Obama’s so-called “Chicago-style politics”, attack Obamacare and promote the Keystone XL pipeline and drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Josh Orton, the Political director at Progressives United, who are leading a coalition of activist groups to pull ads from Facebook, joins us to discuss the social media mogul’s wolf in sheep’s clothing politics. |
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