Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the bombshell revelations by NBC News and The Intercept about the Kushner family shakedown of the Qatari government for a half a billion dollar loan to bailout Jared’s unwise investment in 666 5^thAvenue, a financial albatross which has a $1.4 billion balloon payment due in February. Ryan Grim, the DC Bureau Chief for The Intercept joins us to discuss his latest article at The Intercept “Jared Kushner’s Real-Estate Firm Sought Money Directly from Qatar Government Weeks Before Blockade”. We will look into the extraordinary nature of the self-dealing going on in the Trump White House where the lines between government duties and private business are all-but erased with Jared Kushner representing the United States with some of the most important and sensitive portfolios in our government all the while raising money for his family’s troubled real-estate business that is threatened by Jared’s 2007 vanity purchase of the most expensive building in Manhattan which is underwater and could take down the Kushner brand.

Part 2

Then we speak with Timothy Canova, a Professor of Law, and Public Finance at Nova Southeastern University who teaches Regulation of International Financial Institutions, International Business Transactions and International Trade and Development Law. He joins us to discuss Trump’s impetuous move to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum which has provoked reciprocal threats from other trading partners to slap tariffs on bourbon and Harley Davison motorcycles and could lead to a trade war which Trump is cavalierly unconcerned about, declaring “trade wars are good and easy to win”.'

Part 3

Then finally Mike Stutz joins us in the studio. He is a UCLA alumnus and activist with The Useful Idiots who led a demonstration at UCLA last week dressed as Louis XVI to protest Steven Mnuchin’s appearance on campus at which the Treasury Secretary’s answers to questions from moderator Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace and the audience were greeted with hisses and boos, prompting the Treasury Department to seize the videotape record of the event revoking an agreement to make it public.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with an analysis of why the head of the NSA and Cyber Command’s testimony on Russian interference yesterday misses the point and how meddling in social media is nothing compared to an act of cyberwar which the U.S. engaged in against Iran with Stuxnet and that if the U.S. and Russia went down the path of cyberwarfare, thanks to Admiral Roger’s lax management of the NSA, 80% of the NSA’s arsenal of hacking tools were stolen by the mysterious “Shadow Brokers” and are now in enemy hands, meaning Russia, China and North Korea could shut down the United States. James Bamford, an investigative journalist specializing in national security issues and author of “The Shadow Factory: Inside the Ultra-Secret NSA, from 9/11 to Spying on America” joins us to discuss how the CIA is the only agency authorized to conduct covert cyber warfare and not the NSA or Cyber Command. We  also look into the dangerous combination of arrogance and amateurism in a White House that allowed Jared Kushner’s access to the nation’s top secrets which attracted Israel, China, Mexico and the Emirates to exploit Trump’s naïve son-in-law and Jared’s desperation to find the $1.2 billion he is underwater for on a bad real estate investment he made to impress Ivanka and her father.    

Part 2

Then we look into how the happiest place on earth Disneyland is full of unhappy employees who are forced to smile while one in ten workers are homeless, 74% can’t afford basic monthly expenses, two thirds don’t have enough to eat three meals a day and 85% are paid less than $15 an hour. Peter Dreier, Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College and co-author of a new study “Working for the Mouse: A Survey of Disneyland Employees”, joins us to discuss how the head of Disney Bob Iger will take home $162.5 million this year while his workers’ pay has dropped 15% since 2000.

Part 3