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2016 Programs
2016 Program Archive
August 12 - The Romney/ Ryan Race to the Right; Paul Ryan and the First Family of "Frackers"; Undoing Pennsylvania's Voter Purge
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We begin with Jonathan Chait, a writer for New York Magazine who has extensively profiled Paul Ryan, just chosen by Mitt Romney as his Vice-President on the Romney/Ryan R&R ticket. We discuss why someone who has been a Washington insider with little to no experience in the public sector, who voted for TARP and the Budget-busting prescription drug bill, is the darling of the Tea Party. |
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Then we look into the source of the Ryan family wealth which comes from oil and gas extracted by hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” in the state of Oklahoma. Karen Webb, an Oklahoma-based journalist and regular contributor to the Oklahoma Observer joins us to discuss how Paul Ryan’s father-in-law Dan Little manages the family business for his nephew Congressman Dan Boren, having signed 325 oil and gas leases between 2005 and 2011 for the family who are heavily involved in “fracking”. |
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Then finally we look into what is being done in the state of Pennsylvania to overcome voting restrictions that a Republican leader in the legislature boasted “will deliver the state of Pennsylvania for Mitt Romney”. Will Bunch, an award-winning Senior Writer with the Philadelphia Daily News joins us to discuss how many of the million voters who have been suppressed, will get their voting rights back before November. |
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August 9 - Syria's Bloody Stalemate; When the U.S. Senate Did The People's Business; Ruining Water While Running Out of It
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We begin with an assessment of the Free Syrian Army which appears to have been driven out of parts of Aleppo. Robert Baer, a veteran CIA officer who operated in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, joins us to discuss the disarray amongst opposition fighters and, since Saudi Arabia is taking the lead in arming and equipping the insurgency, not surprisingly there is a growing influx of Wahhabis into the battle to topple the Assad regime. We look into what with end the stalemate and who will influence and shape Syria’s future. |
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Then we speak with a veteran of the U.S. Senate who worked for Senators Gaylord Nelson, Abe Ribicoff, Thomas Eagleton, Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller. Ira Shapiro, the author of a new book “The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis”, joins us to speak about a time when the Senate worked for the American people, before it fell into the grip of gridlock. We discuss how the poisonous partisanship and the purging of moderates by the Tea Party can be be reversed. |
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Then finally we examine a newly released study in the journal Nature titled “Demand for Water Outstrips Supply”. Emily Wurth, the Water Program Director at Food and Water Watch, joins us to discuss the extraordinary amounts of water being used by oil and gas companies that ends up polluted from the growing practice of “fracking”, hydraulic fracturing. We also look into the contamination of increasingly depleted aquifers from “fracking.” |
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August 8 - A Real World Version of the "Hunger Games" Coming Soon; Chevron Fire Spikes Gas Prices; Teddy Bears Attack Belarus
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We begin with a real world version of the hunger games, coming to a country near you. Michael Klare, the Director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College joins us. We discuss his article in the current issue of Mother Jones, “The Hunger Wars in our Future: Heat, Drought, Rising Food Costs, and Global Unrest”. |
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Then we look into the fire at the Chevron oil refinery in Richmond, California that is causing a sudden spike in gas prices on the west coast. Roger Kim, the Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network who has been active in environmental issues with citizens in the community surrounding the refinery, joins us to discuss local anger at Chevron and why the refinery build in 1902 has had problems with fires following a 2007 fire that shut down the refinery for that year’s first quarter. |
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Then finally we speak with David Marples the President of the North American Association for Belarusian Studies about how Europe’s last dictatorship has dealt with the attack of the teddy bears. Following the prank by a Swedish public relations firm that parachuted 800 teddy bears into a town in Belarus, the Swedish Ambassador to Belarus has been expelled by the country’s paranoid dictator Lukashenka, who retaliated in a fit of fury, firing a slew of generals in charge of air defenses for failing to protect the motherland. |
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August 7 - Putin Punishes "Pussy Riot"; Assad's "Vital Partner" Iran; HCA Endangers Patients While Defrauding Taxpayers
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We begin with the expected conviction in the same Moscow court that railroaded oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, of the three young women of the punk rock group “Pussy Riot”. Nina Khruscheva, a professor in the Graduate Program of International Affairs at The New School and author of the forthcoming book “The Lost Khruschev: A Family Journey Into the Gulag of the Mind”, joins us to discuss a trial Khodorkovsky has described as a medieval inquisition. |
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Then we assess the meeting that took place today between the embattled Syrian dictator and Iran’s National Security Chief Saeed Jalili who pledged Iran’s support for its “vital partner”. Nader Hashimi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics joins us to discuss what Iran can do to save the Assad regime and what is likely to happen to the captured so-called Iranian pilgrims rumored to be members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. |
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Then finally we look into the world’s largest operator of private clinics and hospitals, the Hospital Corporation of America, HCA, that again is under scrutiny for performing unnecessary and expensive procedures that endanger patients and defraud the taxpayer. Dr Evan Weisman, a retired cardiologist joins us to discuss the latest charges against HCA who previously paid out $1.7 billion in fines for defrauding the government in 2000. |
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August 6 - Racism, Ignorance and Guns Kill Sikhs in Wisconsin; An Examination of Christian Terrorism; Scholars Explain the Sikh Religion
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We begin with a profile of the white supremacist gunman who shot up a Sikh temple killing six worshipers and gravely wounding three others and a police officer. Mark Potok, the Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project and editor of their quarterly investigative journal Intelligence Report and the Hatewatch blog, joins us. We discuss the lethal combination of permissive gun laws in Wisconsin and ignorant racists susceptible to Fox News propagandists spewing anti-Muslim distortions and diatribes as well as reckless hate speech from politicians like Michelle Bachman. |
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Then we examine the phenomenon of Christian terrorism that largely goes unreported. Mark Juergensmeyer, the Director of the Center for Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara and author of the best-seller ”Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence” and the recently-released “Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State”, joins us. |
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Then finally we learn about the Sikh faith, the seekers of truth, the world’s fifth largest religion, members of which in the United States have been subjected to a 1,600% rise in anti-Muslim violence since 9/11 according the FBI. Gurinder Singh Mann, professor of Sikh Studies and Director of the Center for Sikh and Punjab Studies and Ami Shah, an expert on Sikh literature join us. |
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| MUSIC: Frank Zappa - Touble Every Day; Onward Christian Soldiers; Lupe Fiasco - American Terrorist; Against Me! - Bitter Divisions |
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