Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the plume of toxic pollution that has turned the Animus River a mustard yellow, as toxic sludge makes its way downstream from the mining town of Silverton, Colorado into New Mexico. We first speak with Jeanne Bassett, a Senior Associate for Environment Colorado to get an understanding of how much pollution is contained in the 23,000 abandoned mines in Colorado that continually leak toxins in what is known as acid mine drainage. Then we will get an assessment of the damage done downstream to the fish and wildlife from Ty Churchwell, a back country coordinator with the environmental group Trout Unlimited. He joins us to discuss how the “River of Lost Souls” as it is known in Spanish was brought back to life after being polluted by mining activity but is now threatened again. 

Part 2

Then we examine the just-released Reuters/Ipsos poll following Thursday’s Republican presidential primary debate that has Donald Trump with a commanding lead of 24%, with Jeb Bush trailing in second with 12%, down from 17% before the debate. A leading voice on white identity and race in modern America, Ian Haney Lopez, a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley and author of “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class” joins us. We will discuss how Trump, in spite of efforts by Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch to ambush him in the Fox News debate, has taken dog whistle politics to a new level and is being rewarded by Republican primary voters as the punditry tries to write him off.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the restart of the Sendai nuclear plant in Japan, the first to go back on line since the Fukushima disasters in March of 2011. David Lochbaum, one of the nation’s top independent experts on nuclear power who worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is now the Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, joins us to discuss why, after getting by without nuclear energy for the last 4 years, Japan is bringing back nuclear power.  

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the much-anticipated first Republican presidential primary debate on Fox News that features the top tier of 10 candidates with another debate between those who did not make the cut taking place earlier on Fox at what is being referred to as the “kids table”. A veteran Capitol Hill staffer, Mike Lofgren, the author of “The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted” joins us to discuss warnings by health officials against playing the GOP debate drinking game where contestants down a shot every time a candidate makes a ludicrous statement, leading the Surgeon General to suggest that a safer version of the debate drinking game would be to only consume alcohol when one of the candidates says something reasonable.

Part 2

Then, on the 50^th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act we speak with Jessica Levinson, vice president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission and a Professor at Loyola Law School where she focuses on election law and campaign financing issues.  We discuss the federal appeals court decision to strike down a strict voter ID law in Texas that the justices ruled violated the 1965 Voting Right Act and assess whether, since the Supreme Court blocked the voting act’s most potent tool of pre-clearance by the federal government of states with a history of racial discrimination, this ruling will restore rights of minority voters.

Part 3

Then finally we discuss the 70^th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima with Tom Collina, Director of Policy at the Ploughshares Fund where he works to secure the Iran Nuclear deal, support non-proliferation and continue reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. We discuss which state poses the most danger in terms of using a nuclear weapon and examples of states that have given up nuclear weapons.