Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the eleventh candidate to announce he is running for president in the Republican primaries, Jeb Bush, who made his official entrance promising to “fix” America. Matthew Corrigan, chair and professor of political science at the University of North Florida and author of “Conservative Hurricane” How Jeb Bush Remade Florida” joins us to discuss the very conservative record of the former Florida governor who nevertheless is seen by many Republican primary voters as too liberal. We also look into the emerging rivalry between Bush and his protégée Marco Rubio as Bush’s early dominance in the money race now, thanks to recent stumbles and lackluster campaigning, appears unlikely to deter the growing competition.

Part 2

Then we examine the South African government’s defiance of its own High Court in allowing Sudan’s President Bashir to leave South Africa just hours before the court ruled the government was legally required to arrest Bashir on charges brought by the International Criminal Court of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Katherine Newman, Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and co-author of “After Freedom: The Rise of the Post-Apartheid Generation in Democratic South Africa” joins us to discuss this blow to the ICC in a victory for the African Union led by Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, that bitterly opposes the International Criminal Court and has become a club for African dictators more concerned about protecting Africa’s leaders, than the rights of Africa’s citizens.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Robert Kuttner, the co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect and author of “Debtors’ Prison: The Politics of Austerity Versus Possibility”. We discuss his article at The Huffington Post “The Real Meaning of Obama’s Trade Defeat” and whether the Trans-Pacific Partnership can be revived now that Democrats in Congress rebuked their president and voted it down over concerns the TPP is less of a trade deal and more of a giveaway to America’s corporate elite.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the retirement of the media baron who changed American politics by creating a Soviet-style propaganda arm for the Republican Party, Fox News, which unleashed junkyard dogs posing as journalists to ramp up partisan friction and polarize our politics to the point of dysfunction and paralysis. Award-winning investigative journalist Karl Grossman, Professor of Journalism at the State University of New York, joins us to discuss Rupert Murdoch’s handover of his media empire to his son James, who previously oversaw his father’s newspapers and TV network in Britain and was engulfed in the phone hacking scandal that led to a parliamentary enquiry which prompted his transfer to the company’s headquarters in New York.

Part 2

Then we look into the apparent Republican plans to finish off Obama’s signature achievement the Affordable Care Act, if the Supreme Court rules against it and takes away healthcare insurance from 6.4 million Americans who now have it, many for the first time. Sarah Lueck, a Senior Analyst in Health Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the co-author of their new report “New Republican Proposal Would Leave Millions Uninsured or Underinsured”, joins us to discuss how the Republicans will extend temporary help to the immediate victims of the ruling in return for making sure there are many millions more who will have no health coverage in the future.

Part 3

Then finally we speak with Dimitri Papadimitriou, the President of the Levy Economics Institute and Jerome Levy Professor of Economics at Bard College. He is the co-author of a new Strategic Analysis “Fiscal Austerity, Dollar Appreciation, and Maldistribution Will Derail the U.S. Economy” and we discuss the report and how destructive political ideology is crippling recovery and undermining an otherwise healthy economy.