Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the unexpectedly robust voice of the Greek people expressed in this weekend’s referendum by a margin of 61% to 39%, rejecting the punitive austerity regime imposed by Greece’s Northern European creditors. A former political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Greece, John Brady Kiesling, the first of three U.S. Foreign Service Officers to resign in protest of the Iraq war, joins us from Athens to discuss the mixed message of pride and indignation felt as the country makes a stand against its creditors, along with a deep concern that Greece remain in the Eurozone and that a deal must be made to do so.  

Part 2

Then we look into the president’s remarks today at the Pentagon where Obama met will his military chiefs to assess the campaign against the self-declared Islamic State following this weekend’s most intensive U.S. bombing strikes so far around the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. Nicholas Heras, a Middle East researcher at the Center for a New American Security joins us to discuss the strategic confusion of both the U.S. and the Assad regime’s air forces bombing ISIS, while the U.S. is committed to removing the Assads from power.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog and author of “The Progressive’s Guide to Raising Hell: How to Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws And Get the Change You Voted For – A Direct Democracy Tool Kit”. He joins us to discuss the manipulation of the price of gasoline in California, the nation’s highest, by an oligopoly of oil refiners who routinely shut down refineries to drive up the price of gas while exporting record amounts of fuel to other countries. 

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the largest rally yet for a presidential candidate that took place in Madison, Wisconsin on Wednesday night where up to 12,000 people jammed the Veterans Memorial Coliseum to hear Senator Bernie Sanders call for a political revolution, declaring “The big money interests – Wall Street, corporate America, all of these guys – have so much power that no president can defeat them unless there is an organized grassroots movement making them an offer they can refuse.” The Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, Paul Soglin joins us to discuss this break-out event and whether the lessons from the defeats of Senator Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern apply to Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

Part 2

Then we examine the June jobs report with Elise Gould, a Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute that shows a modest increase in job growth with a seven year low in unemployment in an economy where wages have not grown for working Americans since the late 1970’s, with many earning less today than they did back then. We also discuss the likelihood that this report will not give the Fed Chair Janet Yellin the “decisive evidence” she needs to see in the job market to raise interest rates.

Part 3

Then finally we assess the largest settlement to be paid by a single company in U.S. history, the $18.7 billion BP has agreed with the Department of Justice to pay to resolve years of litigation over BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Scott Eustis, a water policy analyst and coastal wetlands specialist with the Gulf Restoration Network in New Orleans joins us to discuss details of the settlement and whether it measures up to the damage done by the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.