2016 Programs

2016 Program Archive

August 3 - ALEC's Corporate Takeover of American Politics; The Double-dip Recession and Catastrophe in Spain and Italy; The Dispute at South Sudan's Northern Border

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First, we go to New Orleans where ALEC is meeting – that is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate manufactured front group that is coordinating corporate-friendly legislation for passage in State Houses and the capitol. Lisa Graves, the Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy joins us. A blueprint of ALEC’s legislative onslaught of 800 bills was leaked to her, and we will discuss today’s gathering of corporate whores in the prostitution-friendly Big Easy.

 Lisa Graves

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Then, we examine the darkening clouds of an impending perfect storm of economic calamity, as prominent Wall Streeters predict a double-dip recession and cascading municipal defaults while the bond markets slam Spain and impale Italy. David Ruccio, professor of economics at Notre Dame, joins us to discuss what looks like our Smoot-Hawley moment where, instead of rescuing the economy, the Congress has dug a grave for it.

 David Ruccio

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Finally, Lako Tongun joins us. He recently returned from his native home of Southern Sudan, the world’s newest country, where UN peacekeepers have just been killed on the disputed northern border. We will get his analysis of how war can be avoided with the North, which has just ceded one third of its territory to the oil-rich south and is led by a General who has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court.

 Lako Tongun

 

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August 2 - Ransom Paid in Debt Hoax; What White House Strategy?; The Unemployed; Syria is Bleeding

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 We begin with Michael Lind, who has an article at Salon.com The Tea Party: The Debt Ceiling and White Southern Extremism. He believes the mainstream media have missed the story, portraying the Tea Party movement in ideological terms rather than regional terms. While Minnesota’s Michelle Bachman and Illinois’ Joe Walsh are the face of the party, the majority of its members in the House of Representatives are white Southern men.

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 Then, James Carville joins us. He is a veteran political strategist who helped elect President Clinton twice and is a contributor to CNN. Having described the White House’s handling of the Republican-manufactured debt ceiling crisis as a rout from the beginning, James Carville offers up some optimism in terms of an election strategy for the Democrats in 2012. Now that John Boehner has proclaimed he got 98% of what he wanted out of the deal, its Boehner’s economy, and just like Harry Truman ran against a do-nothing Congress, Carville argues Obama should run against an all-cuts – no taxes on the billionaires – Boehner Congress. James Carville

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 Then, we get an overseas perspective on how the recent, self-inflicted wound to America’s economy compares to the very real economic distress in Europe as the Greek crisis migrates to Spain and Italy. Amy Verdun, an expert on European politics at the University of Victoria in British Columbia joins us. Amy Verdun

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 Then finally, now that a determined minority has set the economic course of the nation that is bound to inflict further pain on the many while continuing to reward the few, Jeff Madrick, the author of Age of Greed, joins us to assess the victory of greed over governance. Jeff Madrick

 

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Aug 1 - Ransom Paid in Debt Hoax; What White House Strategy?; The Unemployed; Syria is Bleeding

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 Christopher Jennings, who was senior health care advisor in the Clinton White House and is now director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s health reform project joins us. He assesses what kind of hit healthcare will take in the cuts-only deal that ended the economic hostage crisis, at least in the short term.

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 Michael Tomasky joins us. He is special correspondent for Newsweek and the Daily Beast, and we talk about strategy, or the lack thereof in the White House, that allowed a minority of Tea Party zealots to shape national policy, stall economic recovery and impoverish millions of Americans.

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 Then we look into the part that was left out of the deal; that is, jobs and unemployment. Judith Conti with the National Employment Law Project joins us to discuss the likelihood of increasing joblessness and unemployment that will result from this deal and what impact that will have on next year’s elections.

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 Then finally we turn to Syria, a country that is bleeding as the Assad regime turns tanks and artillery on its defenseless citizens.  Dr Muraf Jouejati, professor of Middle East Studies at the National Defense University joins us to discuss the Obama Administration’s lack of response to the regime’s outrages that will become even more brazen and brutal in the month of Ramadan ahead.

 

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July 31 - Did The Economic Hostage-takers Win?; Democracy and the Corporate Duopoly; Would Jesus Crash the Economy?

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 An expert on government, Paul Light joins us to discuss how the Republicans seem to have won in spite of having manufactured this crisis to achieve their policy goals through extortion, by threatening to damage an already weak economy which the Democrats will be running on next year.

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 The Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute Jeffrey Sachs joins us to assess what seems to be a suicide pact that President Obama is expected to sign, an austerity package that will kill our faltering economic recovery and undermine the foundation of the Democratic Party, leading to the likelihood of third parties and primary challenges emerging next year.

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 We look at the moral questions raised by the actions of a few wealthy white men who call themselves Christians, who are about to unnecessarily impoverish millions of their fellow Americans in order to form a more perfect disunion. Jim Wallis, the CEO of Sojourners and author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street joins us to shine a light on this hypocrisy, meanness and ideological cruelty.

 

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July 28 - Iran Shoring Up Syria; Reviving a Israeli/Palestinian Peace; Who is Killing America's Economic Recovery

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 We begin with some foreign policy issues that have been overshadowed by the economic hostage crisis on Capitol Hill. Ambassador Marc Ginsberg joins us to talk about Iran’s role in shoring up the murderous Assad clan in Syria, with both money and Iranian Revolutionary Guards thugs who have honed their skills beating, jailing and murdering Iranian protesters during the Green revolution.

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We speak with an Israeli Air Force veteran, Brigadier General Nehemiah Dagan, who is currently touring the U.S. sponsored by J Street, the dovish alternative to AIPAC, promoting a two-state solution. We discuss the absence of peace, and even a peace process, between the Israelis and Palestinians and what can be done to bring the parties back to the table.

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Given the high stakes in the current economic hostage crisis brought on by those who created the deficit that all except the wealthiest Americans are expected to pay down at the cost of killing economic recovery, we get an update on the latest insanity on Capitol Hill. Thomas Ferguson, professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts and a member of the advisory board of the Institute For New Economic Thinking, joins us.

 

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