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2016 Programs
2016 Program Archive
January 24 - Sisters in Arms; DOJ's Failure to go After the "Untouchables" on Wall Street; North Korea's Big Bang Theory of Extortion
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We begin with today’s announcement by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs allowing women in the military to soon serve in combat. A former sergeant and Arabic-speaking intelligence specialist who served with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, Kayla Williams joins us. The author of “Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army”, she tells us how she feels about what President Obama calls an historic step.
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Then, with today’s news of the impending resignation of Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and the nomination of Mary Jo White to head up the Securities and Exchange Commission, we speak with Martin Smith, the producer of the just-broadcast PBS FRONTLINE special “The Untouchables” which is about the failure of the Justice Department to prosecute those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown that caused the recession and the impoverishment of millions of Americans. |
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Then finally we examine the latest explicit threat from North Korea against the U.S. with the announcement that they will soon conduct a bigger nuclear test in defiance of the U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed in response to a recent North Korean missile test. Sung Yoon Lee, a Professor of International Affairs at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tuft’s University joins us to discuss the meaning and motives behind Pyongyang’s heated rhetoric.
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January 23 - Hillary Clinton's Testimony Slams Republican Critics; Israel's Election Surprise; The Decline of Union Representation in the Workforce
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We begin with an appraisal of out-going Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony before Senate and House Committees where she faced hostile questions from Republicans who have long tried to blow up the tragic incident in Benghazi into a major foreign policy issue. A former Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence who was an intelligence analyst on Libya, Wayne White, joins us for a reality check. |
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Then we go to Israel for an update on the surprising election results where a little-know new party Yesh Atid (There is a Future) came in second. A former Speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg joins us to discuss what kind of government coalition Prime Minister Netanyahu will be able to form with this new staunchly secular party who are unlikely to join a coalition with the right-wing ultra Orthodox parties who make up the current Likud government. |
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Then finally we look into the new report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that union membership in America has dropped to a record low with a one-year drop in 2012 of union representation in the private sector from 6.9 to 6.6%. John Schmitt, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington D.C. who is the co-author with Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein of three editions of the “State of Working America”, joins us. |
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January 22 - A "Sea Change" in the Government's Ability to Collect Data on Its Citizens; Brazen Republican Gerrymandering in Virginia; The Cardinal's Sins
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We begin with a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist with the Wall Street Journal, Julia Angwin, who has uncovered a new government surveillance regime at the National Counterterrorism Center that was resisted by privacy rights officials in the Department of Homeland Security before being put in place last March by John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head up the CIA. We discuss this new program described as a “sea change” in the government’s ability to collect data on its citizens. Julia has an article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal “U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens”. |
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Then we examine the brazen actions of the Virginia legislature where Senate Republicans passed a radical redistricting plan while a key Democrat was attending the presidential inauguration. Keesha Gaskins, a Voting Rights Advocate and Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program joins us to discuss the latest gerrymandering in a key swing state and whether the Republicans, who are on the losing end of changing demographics, plan to stay competitive by rigging the vote. |
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Then finally we are joined by Joelle Casteix a spokesperson for SNAP, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. She addresses the just-released records the archdiocese of Los Angeles have fought for years to keep secret that reveal Cardinal Roger Mahony hid sex abuse cases from authorities. We discuss the now-retired Cardinal’s contrition in the face of more and continuing evidence of a systemic cover-up of abuse by pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. |
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January 21 - The Second Inauguration of America's First Black President; Obama's Speech and the Challenges he Faces; "Why we Must Help Mali"
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We begin with the second inauguration of President Obama that coincided with Martin Luther King Day and get an appraisal of the 44th President from James Kloppenberg professor of American History and Chair of the History Department at Harvard University. He is the author of “Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition” and we discuss the apparent comfort most Americans have with their first black president. |
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Then we look into the president’s second inaugural speech with a former chief speechwriter for the U.S. Representative to the United Nations and author of “Live From the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the 20th Century and How They Shaped Modern America”. Michael Cohen joins us to discuss today’s speech and how much it spelled out Obama’s vision to address the challenges ahead as he enters his second term with a gridlocked Congress and a divided country. |
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Then finally we look into the roiling region of North Africa where the residue of terrorism from Algeria and arms from Libya are turning the Sahel into a new front in the war on terror. The former U.S. Ambassador to Mali, Vicki Huddleston joins us. She had a recent article in the New York Times, “Why We Must Help Mali” and we discuss how neglect towards the region led to a belated effort to address a deteriorating situation that could have been more easily solved earlier. |
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January 20 - Israel Lurches to the Right; The Speech Obama Should Make; Will Obama be Rewarded by a Conservative Crack-up?
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We begin with next Tuesday’s election in Israel that is likely to bring back a right wing government in coalition with a far right wing party that will be increasingly out of step with the largely liberal American/Jewish community who support Israel, a government with a more combative relationship with America’s president, who already has trouble dealing with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Gideon Levy, a journalist and member of the Editorial Board of Ha’aretz joins us from Jerusalem to discuss Israel’s march to the right. |
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Then we hear a speech that President Obama will not give at Monday’s inauguration but should. Paul Ehrlich, the President of Center for Conservation Biology and Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University joins us to speak about how climate change is baking Australia and flooding America’s east coast and that climate disruption with wreak havoc on our food supply already heavily dependent on greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuel. He calls for a new Manhattan or man-on-the-moon project to address global warming that the president should enunciate before it is too late. |
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Then finally Sam Tanenhaus, the Editor of the New York Times Book Review joins us. He is the author of “The Death of Conservatism: A Movement and Its Consequences” and we discuss how much President Obama’s second term might be rewarded by the growing fratricide within the conservative movement between what David Brooks calls the Tea Party /Talk Radio base of the Republican Party and its less ideological corporate and managerial class. |
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