Full Program

Part 1

 We will begin with Trump’s promise to “look into” a report on his nominee for drug czar after a Washington Post/60 Minutes expose revealed that Congressman Tom Marino pushed legislation that hobbled the DEA in combatting the opioid crisis by preventing their enforcement efforts against big drug companies and distributers who manufacture and peddle Oxycoten and similar drugs that have killed close to 200,000 Americans. The editor of The Journal of Drug Policy Analysis, Mark Kleiman, a Professor of Public Policy in the Crime and Justice Program at the Marin Institute for Urban Management at NYU and author of “When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment”, joins us to discuss the legislation championed by Marino and Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who received $200,000 in campaign contributions from pharmaceutical companies, that prevented the DEA from seizing suspicious shipments of pills to rogue pharmacies and corrupt doctors. We will also assess what President Trump might offer in terms of solutions when next week he is expected to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency.

Part 2

Then we get an analysis of the results of the Austrian elections which indicate a major shift to the right inflamed by an Islamophobic and anti-immigrant campaign by the handsome 31 year-old Sebastian Kurz, the leader of the People’s Party which captured 31% of the vote and is likely to form a coalition with the right wing Freedom Party founded by former Nazis. Christian Schueller, Senior Editor in the magazine and documentary department of the Austrian TV network ORF, joins us to discuss the rise of anti-immigrant populism and nationalism across Western and Eastern Europe.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the fate of the Kurds in Northern Iraq who are surrounded by enemies Turkey, Iran and now the government in Baghdad which just seized oil-rich Kirkuk, the cash cow of Iraqi Kurdistan. Henri Barkey, a Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University who was a member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, joins us to discuss how a more engaged U.S. President and State Department might have prevented the Kurds from going ahead with a referendum on independence which has backfired, spreading more instability and possibly provoking conflict across the region.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with President Trump’s executive order that he held up to the press today with a self-satisfied smile which the Democratic Leader in the Senate says is aimed at sabotaging the Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare.  Sarah Lueck, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who works on healthcare reform implementation, health insurance exchanges and private market reform included in the Affordable Care Act, joins us to discuss her article at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities “Trump Order Could Destabilize Health Insurance Markets, Hurt Those With Pre-Existing Conditions”, and the likely impact of Trump’s executive order combined with efforts within HHS by its former head Tom Price to sabotage the ACA via administrative obstacles. We analyze the extent to which the insurance pool essential to the ACA’s economic viability will be rendered ineffective as younger healthier participants are encouraged to pay less for less coverage ensuring that there will be less money in the pool to take care of older sicker patients and those with pre-existing conditions.

Part 2

Then we speak with Robert Jay Lifton, an award-winning psychiatrist, historian and public intellectual about his article at The New York Times “”Our Changing Climate Mindset” and his new book, just out, “The Climate Swerve: Reflections on Mind, Hope, and Survival”. We will discuss how climate change is turning weather events from disasters into catastrophes forcing us to change our collective consciousness to look upon ourselves as members of a single species in deep trouble aboard lifeboat earth.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the Republican tax plan with Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research who has an article at The Huffington Post, “The Republican Plan to Slow Growth”. We discuss how allowing “pass through” businesses to pay less in taxes has crippled revenues and almost bankrupted the state of Kansas and will surely explode the deficit if adopted at a national level, and how the plan to eliminate the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes is aimed at punishing successful states like California who largely vote for Democrats.