Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the growing speculation that Vice President Biden will enter the 2016 Democratic presidential race which is largely being generated by the media following a column by The New York Times’ columnist Maureen Dowd who quoted the late Beau Biden’s dying wish that his father run because “the country would be better off with Biden values”. Jacob Heilbrunn, a Senior Editor at the National Interest and a former senior editor at The New Republic and editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times, joins us to discuss whether Republican Clinton-haters and Democratic Clinton-haters like Maureen Dowd are concocting this story or whether the 72 year old Biden, who would be the oldest candidate to run for the presidency, is actually contemplating challenging Hillary Clinton.

Part 2

Then we look into President Obama’s announcement today, unveiling his Clean Power Plan that he called “the biggest, most important step we have ever taken” in dealing with climate change. Jody Freeman, the founding director of Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law and Policy Program and author of “Global Climate Change and U.S. Law”, joins us to discuss the first national limits to be imposed on power plants that are responsible for 40% of all U.S. global warming emissions. We address the impending blizzard of legal challenges and assess the prospects for a 32% cut by 2030 in carbon emissions from the power sector being implemented under the Clean Air Act.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Duncan Campbell, a veteran British investigative journalist who has been battling his country’s Draconian secrecy laws for decades. He joins us to discuss changes made since the Snowden revelations and his article at The Intercept, “My Life Unmasking British Eavesdroppers”.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the discovery of debris that is likely to be from the Malaysian airliner that disappeared over the Indian Ocean 17 months ago prompting the most extensive and expensive search in history. Dr. John Hansman, a Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT where he is the Director of the MIT International Center for Air Transportation joins us. The Chair of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration Research Engineering & Development Committee, we will discuss the significance of this discovery and whether it will help explain the mystery of what happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8, 2014 with all 239 passengers and crew on board.

Part 2

Then on the 50^th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid that was signed into law by President Johnson on July 30, 1965, we look into the health and durability of Medicare that serves 54 million Americans along with Medicaid that covers 70 million people. Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of Social Medicine and Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and author of “The Political Life of Medicare”, joins us to discuss the current attacks on these popular programs from Congressman Paul Ryan who was recently joined by Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who, speaking before a Koch brothers-sponsored event, called for the phasing out of Medicare claiming it was not solvent.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with one of America’s premier military experts William Arkin, who co-authored the landmark “Top Secret America” investigation and is the co-author of the national best-seller of the same name. He joins us to discuss his latest book “Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare” and how our security is undermined by the impulse to gather too much data and that by using drones to avoid putting our troops in danger, we put the rest of us in more danger.