Full Program

Part 1

We be begin with the other debt crisis, not Greece but Puerto Rico, where the governor of the island’s 3.6 million people just announced the commonwealth’s $72 billion debt “is not payable” and that Puerto Rico needs to pull out of a “death spiral”. Charles Venator Santiago, Professor of Latino Politics, Public Law and Political Theory at the Institute of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at the University of Connecticut joins us to discuss the constitutional limbo Puerto Ricans have be placed by the U.S. where they are American citizens but can’t vote, and why Puerto Rico has piled up more municipal debt per capita than any other American state.

Part 2

Then we look into the Supreme Court’s ruling against the EPA that undermines the Obama Administration’s efforts to cut mercury and other toxic emissions from coal-burning power plants. Bob Kincaid, a co-founder of the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Campaign joins us to discuss this victory for Peabody Coal and 23 states that sued the EPA over the cost of compliance to curb emissions which the EPA argues is offset by the health benefits from cutting emissions that are three times the costs of compliance.

Part 3

Then finally we examine the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of a voter initiative in Arizona, Proposition 105 that passed overwhelmingly in 2000, creating an independent commission to oversee redistricting to prevent the Republican-dominated Arizona’s legislature’s gerrymandering. Steve Muratore, who blogs on election redistricting at the Arizona Eagletarian joins us to discuss this victory in which as Justice Ginsberg stated for the majority opinion “Arizona voters sought to restore the core principle that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around”.

Full Program

Part 1

We be begin with the unexpectedly decisive ruling from the Supreme Court of 6 to 3 to uphold federal subsidies on federally created insurance exchanges thus saving so-called Obamacare and President Obama’s place in history. We begin with Wendell Potter, a Senior Analyst on Healthcare at the Center for Public Integrity and a former chief corporate spokesman at CIGNA and head of communications at Humana Inc. His new book is “Obamacare: What’s in It for Me? What Everyone Needs to Know About the Affordable Care Act” and we discuss this victory for the president who at the White House today said, “after nearly a century of talk…we finally declared that in America healthcare is not a privilege for a few but a right for all…the Affordable Care Act is here to stay.”

Part 2

Then we look into the politics behind the long struggle to get healthcare reform with the Affordable Care Act now having survived a second near-death experience overcoming its last major hurdle. Jonathan Cohn, a senior national correspondent at The Huffington Post and author of “Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Healthcare Crisis – and the People Who Pay the Price” joins us to discuss whether the Republicans will still campaign against Obamacare.

Part 3

Then we speak with Ian Millhiser, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of “Injustices: The Supreme Court’s History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted”. We will give the Supreme Court credit where credit is due and analyze why they took the case and why they ruled so clearly in Obama’s favor.  

Part 4

Then finally we examine the role of Wall Street in our increasingly dynastic politics and look into the ties that the Bush family dynasty have to Wall Street as the big bankers fall over themselves to throw money at Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. Nomi Prins, an author and Senior Fellow at Demos who was a managing director at Goldman Sachs and ran the international analytic group for Bear Sterns joins us to discuss her latest book, “All The President’s Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power”.