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2016 Programs
2016 Program Archive
August 26 - Shutting Out Ron Paul Will Not Shut Him Up; Will Money Buy the White House?; Rather Than Debate Facts Romney Invents Them
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We begin with Bruce Fein who was a Deputy Attorney General in the Reagan administration and wrote the articles of impeachment for President Nixon and President Clinton. He was a Senior Policy Advisor to the Ron Paul 2012 campaign and we discuss the bitter power struggles over the seating of Ron Paul’s delegates and how Ron Paul has been shunned by the Republican National Committee and will not appear on stage at the convention in Tampa. |
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Then we examine whether the White House can be bought and compare the record amount of spending so far where monthly totals exceed the entire spending totals of previous races. Sheila Krumholz, who is the Executive Director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money, politics and influence in Washington, joins us. She has an article at CNN “Will Money Buy the White House?” |
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Then, following Mitt Romney’s “birther” quip that got an enthusiastic response from a Republican audience, we look into the “big lies” that are the basis of the Romney and Republican attacks on Obama, almost all of which have been completely manufactured, but are rarely challenged by the press. Mark Feldstein, an award-winning Investigative Correspondent for CNN, ABC, NBC and a two-time winner of the George Foster Peabody Award joins us to discuss a campaign that does not debate the facts but rather invents them. |
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| MUSIC: The Raconteurs - You Don't Understand Me; The Beatles - Can't Buy Me Love; DJ Shadow - Why Hip Hop Sucks in 96'; The Eagles - Lyin' Eyes |
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August 23 - A Run on the Euro as Europe Runs Out of Time; The Pew Center's Devastating Report on the Shrinking Middle Class; How the Republicrats Rigged the Presidential Debates
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We begin with a story that keeps coming back to haunt us, and that is the perennial Eurocrisis, now growing worse by the day while Europe's policymakers enjoy their long August vacation.Dimitri Papadimitriou, the president of the Levy Economics Institute joins us to discuss the accelerating run on the Euro as citizens in poorer nations move their money to Germany. making it impossible for Greece,Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland.to cover their losses. |
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Then we look into the latest report by the Pew Research Center that finds the American middle class has shrunk by 10% from 1971 to 2010, while only the upper income group has increased their share of the nation's wealth to 46%, up from 29% in 1071. Meanwhile the lower income group rose to 29% of all adults, up from 25%. Branko Milanovic, a lead economist with the World Bank and author of "The Haves and Have-Nots: A Brief Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality" joins us. |
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Then finally we speak with George Farah, the founder and Executive Director of Open Debates, an organization working to reform the presidential debates. We will discuss how the Republican and Democratic Parties took the debates away from the non-partisan League of Women Voters and have since rigged the system to weaken the format, limit the number of debates and exclude third-party candidates. |
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| MUSIC: Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction; The Shins - No Way Down; Modest Mouse - Missed The Boat; The Platters - The Great Pretender |
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August 22 - Romney/Ryan Win Money But Lose Message; U.S. Will Pay a Price for Staying Out of Syria; Is Press Asking the Right Questions About Assange?
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We begin with an analysis of why, in spite of an insurmountable advantage in money, the Republican Romney/Ryan ticket continues to be wrong-footed by gaffes which distract the campaign from its main message. Michelle Goldberg, a senior contributing writer for Newsweek and the Daily Beast joins us to discuss how lucky Barack Obama appears to be in terms of candidates he runs against. |
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Then we speak with Ambassador Marc Ginsberg, a former presidential advisor and a Special Advisor to the Department of Defense Special Operations Command about the president’s red line in Syria regarding chemical weapons and their possible use. He has an article at The Huffington Post “Obama’s Syrian ‘Red Line’ is No Red Light to Hezbollah or Iran”. |
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Then finally we speak with Robert Naiman who, back in June, delivered a letter signed by Michael Moore, Oliver Stone and Noam Chomsky and others to the Ecuadorean embassy in London urging Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa to approve Julian Assange’s request for asylum. We discuss the Wikileaks founder’s current predicament and the questions that Robert Naiman feels the press aren’t asking, principally whether Assange’s extradition to Sweden will lead to his extradition to the U.S. |
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| MUSIC: Monty Python - Every Sperm Is Sacred; Syrian Protesters - Bashar Must Go; Arcade Fire - The Well and the Lighthouse; Johnny Cash - Won't Back Down |
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August 21 - Akin, Ryan and the Republican Platform; UN Must Act on Syria's Chemical Weapons Threat; What the Keystone XL Pipeline Will Be Carrying
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We begin with the Republican leadership’s breathtaking hypocrisy as they feign indignation over remarks made by Congressman Todd Akin that are identical to the views contained in the Republican platform now being prepared for next week’s convention. Joining us is Jodi Jacobson, the President and Editor-in-Chief of RH Reality Check, where she has an article “As Romney and Ryan Dissemble, RNC Prepares Radical Anti-Choice Platform Based on Personhood”. |
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Then we examine Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal and its possible proliferation or use, which President Obama has warned is a red line that would provoke intervention. Raymond Zilinskas, a former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq who now directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, joins us. He has an article in the National Interest, “Preventing the Use of Syrian Chemical Weapons”. |
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Then finally we speak with David Sassoon, the publisher of Insideclimatenews.org about dilbit, a thick tar that is diluted with chemicals so that it can move through pipelines. He has an article in Tuesday’s New York Times, “Crude, Dirty and Dangerous” and we discuss the hazards associated with transporting up one quarter of our future oil supply across America from the Canadian tar sands to Texas via the Keystone XL pipeline that will be carrying the dirty and dangerous dilbit. |
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August 20 - Todd Akin's Taliban-like Mentality Concerning Rape and Women's Bodies; Motives Behind the President of Ecuador's Asylum for Assange; A Look Inside "The Party" That Rules China.
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We begin with the extraordinary remarks from a Republican congressman running as a Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in Missouri. Leila Abolfazli, the Senior Counsel in the Health and Reproductive Rights Program at the National Women’s Law Center joins us to discuss Representative Todd Akin’s Taliban-like mentality when it comes to rape and women’s bodies, and his attempts, together with Paul Ryan, to change the definition of rape in a bill they co-sponsored. |
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Then we look into why the President of Ecuador, who is trampling on press freedom at home, has come out as the champion of a free press in offering asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Anita Isaacs, a Professor of Political Science at Haverford College and author of “Politics of Military Rule and Transition in Ecuador”, joins us. She has an article in Monday’s New York Times, “It’s Not About Assange”. |
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Then finally, with the wife of a senior Chinese Communist Party official avoiding a death sentence, we speak with Richard McGregor, who has been the Bureau Chief for the Financial Times in China for the past ten years. He is the author of a new book, “The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers” and we examine the secretive and powerful elite behind the new economic superpower that is already the world’s second biggest economy. |
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