Full Program

Part 1

We begin with arguments before the Supreme Court today in a case brought by conservative activists representing a few California teachers who consider paying union dues an infringement of their First Amendment rights, an argument the court’s majority of conservative justices appeared ready to rule in favor of and thus deal public sector unions a severe blow. Elizabeth Wydra, Chief Counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center, who was in the Supreme Court today, joins us to discuss this politically-charged case that appears to be aimed at decimating unions that tend to support Democratic candidates.

Part 2

Then, ahead of this week’s inauguration of Guatemala’s president-elect, the comedian Jimmy Morales, we examine the fates of 18 former senior military and intelligence officers arrested on charges related to the massacres and disappearances of 245,000 mostly indigenous Guatemalans in the 1980’s. Anita Isaacs, a Professor of Political Science at Haverford College and author of the forthcoming book, “The Politics of Transitional Justice in Postwar Guatemala”, joins us to discuss the looming showdown between the judiciary and the political establishment as prosecutors moved to have the Congressional immunity of the co-founder of Morales’ party lifted.

Part 3

Then finally we go to Berlin, Germany to speak with Stefanie Lohaus, the co-founder and co-editor of Missy Magazine and Anne Wizorek, a prominent feminist activist and author of “Because an Outcry in Not Enough”. Together they have an article in VICE magazine “Immigrants Aren’t Responsible for Rape Culture in Germany” and we discuss the backlash to the 200 alleged sexual assaults that took place around Cologne’s train station during New Year celebrations that have one third of Germans now saying their views on immigrants have worsened.  

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the suspension of trading on the Chinese stock market and the effect that uncertainties over the Chinese economy, along with increasing tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran and falling oil prices are having as global markets and Wall Street took a hammering today with the Dow down 392 points, its biggest loss in three months. First we go to China and speak with Scott Kennedy, the deputy director of the Freeman Chair in China Studies and the director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The author of “Beyond the Middle Kingdom” and the forthcoming book “The Dragon’s Learning Curve: Global Governance in China”, we will discuss China’s dilemma in wanting more participation in the global economy but at the time not wanting to be subject to the  kind of market forces that brought about the 2008 crash.

Part 2

Then we hear from Victor Shih, a Professor of Political Science in the 21^st Century China Program in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. He joins us to discuss the more important issue than China’s stock market, the decline of China’s currency the renminbi which is at its lowest point in six years, and whether currency depreciation is being used to stimulate growth as currency weakness, economic slowdown and stock market turmoil combine to question how much the Chinese government is in control.

Part 3

Then finally we go to Flint, Michigan to speak with Lonnie Scott, the Executive Director of Progress Michigan, about the poisonous water from the contaminated Flint River that the citizens of Flint have been forced to drink over the past year because of austerity imposed on the city by the state’s Republican governor Rick Snyder. We  discuss the call by Flint’s most famous resident Michael Moore that Governor Snyder resign and be placed under arrest by the FBI for poisoning children in the name of cutting costs.