Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
September 29 - Postponing a Government Shutdown; Putin Challenges the US at the UN; Not Only Do VW Diesels Need Fixing, so Does the Recall System
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the showdown in the House of Representatives with one day left before the government runs out of money after the Senate has passed a clean funding bill without the provision to defund Planned Parenthood, Obamacare and the implementation of the Iran deal. John Lawrence, a visiting professor at the University of California’s Washington Center who worked in the House of Representatives for 38 years and served as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Chief of Staff, joins us to discuss his recent article at The New York Times “John Boehner Fades Away”. And, assuming we avoid a government shutdown tomorrow, what will happen on December 11, when the government runs out of money again. |
 |
|
|
Then we assess Russian President Putin’s recent interview with Charlie Rose on “60 Minutes” and his speech before the U.N. with one of Putin’s bravest critics, Masha Gessen, the author of “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin”. We discuss how the wily Russian leader easily parried Charlie Rose’s softball questions and whether Putin will be able to organize a coalition of anti-American countries to resist what he perceives as U.S. domination, challenging the U.N. with the charge that “after the end of the Cold War, the single center of domination has emerged in the world…those who have found themselves on top of the pyramid were tempted to think that since they are so strong and singular, they know what to do better than others and it’s unnecessary to pay attention to the U.N.” |
|
|
|
Then finally we speak with Ian Ayres, a Professor at Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management about his article at The Los Angeles Times “Fix VW’s polluting diesels, and fix the recall system too”. We discuss how most states do not have compulsory smog checks and that voluntary recalls often result in 70% of owners not bothering to get their cars fixed. So given that recalling the rigged VW’s diesel cars would mean that the fix will result in a penalty of performance and mileage, how likely is it that owners of polluting VW diesels will answer the recall? |
|
mp3audio:
Tags:
September 28 - How Much Does the Islamic State Threaten Russia?; Criticism and Adulation for India's PM Modi; Did VW Damage the Environmental Movement?
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the dueling speeches at the U.N. from President Obama and Russia’s President Putin where each blamed the other for the mess in Syria. Gordon Hahn, a Professor and Senior Researcher at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterrey and author of “Russia’s Islamic Threat” and “Russia’s Revolution From Above”, joins us. We discuss Putin’s call for “a genuinely broad international coalition” to fight the Islamic State, and the extent to which Russia is threatened by the Islamic State given that most of the jihadists in Russia’s Caucasus have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and that two of the top commanders in the Islamic State are brothers from Russia. |
|
|
|
Then we go to London to speak with a specialist on India, Cleo Paskal, who is a visiting Trudeau Fellow at the University of Montreal’s Center for International Studies and a Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London. We discuss India’s Prime Minister Modi’s remarks to the U.N. today that were preceded by a trip to the Silicon Valley where Modi pushed his “Digital India” project and met with the leaders of the giant tech companies, many of which are headed by Indians or Indian Americans. |
|
|
|
Then finally we get an assessment of the damage done to the environmental movement by the massive deceit carried out by the world’s largest car manufacturer, Volkswagen. Joe Romm, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and the Founding Editor of Climate Progress where he has an article “We May Have Just Bought Ourselves an Extra Decade to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change”, joins us. We discuss the bad news in terms of VW’s cheating, but the good news today with Shell abandoning its plan to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean and India’s pledge to join in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses, following the recent announcement by China that is was adopting a cap and trade CO2 reduction regime. |
|
mp3audio:
Tags:
September 27 - The "Crazies" Claim Boehner's Scalp; The "Thug" to Meet the "Weakling" at the UN Over Syria; The One Year Anniversary of the Disappearance of 43 Mexican Students
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the resignation of the Speaker of the House a day after he hosted Pope Francis and discuss how the first constitutional office written into the constitution has become an untenable job for a Republican lawmaker who tries to work with other branches of government to get things done for the American people. A veteran senior staffer who spent 28 years in Congress, Mike Lofgren joins. He is the author of “The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafter”, and we will discuss the Tea Party’s so-called Freedom Caucus in the House which Congressman Peter King calls “the crazies” and how GOP primary voters at the Values Summit cheered when presidential candidate Marco Rubio announced John Boehner’s resignation.
|
 |
|
|
Then we examine the continuing growth of ISIS with 30,000 foreign recruits pouring into Syria at the same time that divisions have erupted among U.S. Military Intelligence analysts who feel that their assessments are being sanitized by the top brass to make it appear that U.S. efforts to degrade and destroy ISIS are more successful than the reality on the ground indicates. Richard Barrett, who was the Coordinator of the al Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Team at the United Nations in New York joins us to discuss what might be achieved in tomorrow’s meeting about Syria between President Obama and Vladimir Putin, given that Obama thinks Putin is a thug and Putin thinks Obama is a weakling. |
 |
|
|
Then finally on the one year anniversary of the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico we go to Mexico City to speak with Ryan Devereaux who covers national security and criminal justice for The Intercept where his latest article is “Disappearances in Mexico, One Year Later: New Theories but Few Answers”. We discuss yesterday’s demonstration by tens of thousands that was led by the parents of the missing students protesting the government’s official findings from an inquiry that few Mexicans believe explains what really happened to the missing students. |
 |
mp3audio:
Tags:
September 24 - The Pope Confronts Politics Head-On; The Chinese Leader's Staged Visit; Unbridled Capitalism Run Amok
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the Pope’s address to the joint session of Congress and speak with best-selling author James Carroll, a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University who is a former priest and anti-war activist who has been a civil rights worker and a community organizer and is the author of “Christ Actually: The Son of God for the Secular Age” now out in a new paperback edition. We discuss his recent article in The New Yorker “What to Make of Pope Francis Now” and the Pope’s head on confrontation of thorny political issues bubbling over in the presidential primaries, as well as the pontiff’s belief that, quoting him, the church’s “structural and organizational reforms are secondary…the first reform must be the attitude”. |
 |
|
|
Then we look into the kick-off of the state visit by China’s leader Xi Jinping who is visiting the west coast where in Seattle he pledged that his country would take action on cybercrime, while cracking jokes about the movie “Sleepless in Seattle” and the Netflix TV hit “House of Cards” that portrays a venal power hungry U.S, president, a series that ironically is the most popular illegally downloaded show in China. One of the world’s foremost experts on China’s language, culture and people, Perry Link joins us. We discuss how much this state visit is part of an orchestrated propaganda campaign underway in China to bolster and burnish the image of Xi as a world leader and a cuddly big daddy figure. |
 |
|
|
Then finally we speak with Amatai Etzioni, University Professor and Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University, about the recent evidence of unbridled capitalism that Pope Francis has warned about. We discuss Amatai Etzioni’s article at The Huffington Post “Unbridled Capitalism: New Evidence”, as well as.the sentencing of a Peanut Executive whose product killed nine people and sickened 714 others, and today’s resignation of the CEO of Volkswagen because the company deliberately and systemically cheated consumers and the taxpayer, along with the recent expose of Johnson & Johnson’s marketing of a drug they knew caused strokes and abnormal breast development in boys. |
 |
mp3audio:
September 23 - The Nun on the Bus Meets the Pope at the White House; The Dark Side of Religious Freedom in America
|
|
LISTEN TO FULL PROGRAM | |
|
|
We begin with the Pope’s visit to the White House today where 15,000 invited guests crowded into the south lawn to hear the Pope urge Americans to build a truly tolerant and inclusive society and to tackle the issue of global warming before it is too late. Sister Simone Campbell, a religious leader, attorney and poet who is the Executive Director of Network and the author of “A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community” joins us. She was at the White House today and we get an appraisal of how the Pope’s remarks on climate change, immigration, inequality and religious freedom were greeted as the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics did not shy away from bringing up contentious political issues that are roiling the presidential primary debates and will no doubt come up in the Pope’s address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday. |
 |
|
|
Then we look further into the issues of religious liberty which the Pope will be taking on in Philadelphia where he is meeting with conservative bishops to “celebrate and support the institutions of marriage and the family”. Following the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision we will explore whether there is too much, as opposed to too little religious freedom in the United States, an issue that is made painfully clear in the devastating new Showtime movie “Prophet’s Prey” that opens in Hollywood of Friday and nationwide in early October. The writer/director of this new documentary feature Amy Berg joins us in studio along with best-selling author Jon Krakauer, who is a producer and appears in “Prophet’s Prey” and is the author of “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith”. We will discuss how a cult of polygamous Mormons engaged in systematic slavery, child labor and the sexual abuse of minors, still flourishes today under the leadership of its self-declared prophet Warren Jetts who is serving a life sentence for sexual assault on a 12 year-old girl and a 15 year-old he impregnated, in a Texas prison from where he directs his “church’s” multi-million dollar activities. |
|
mp3audio:
RSS Latest Radio Programs
Pacifica App