Full Program

Part 1

We begin with China’s President Xi Jinping’s $46 billion investment in Pakistan to build a new Silk Road known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a network of roads, railway and pipelines between China and the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean. Political and strategic analyst Shuja Nawaz, the Director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council and author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars Within” joins us to discuss Monday’s extravagant summit in Islamabad where these ambitious plans were announced and possible impediments it faces from restive Uighurs in China’s far-Western provinces and a separatist insurgency in Baluchistan where the new Silk Road will meet the sea.  

Part 2

Then following an admission by Senator McCain, we examine the payback Senate Republicans are inflicting on the Democrats by slow-walking their nominees in retaliation for the so-called nuclear option used in the last Congress to overcome a bottleneck of blocked appointments held up by Republican filibusters. A 21 year veteran of the U.S. Senate, Jim Manley, who was senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joins us to discuss how this infantile behavior has ground the government to a halt.

Part 3

Then finally we assess the just-concluded IMF spring meeting in Washington at which the renewed possibility of Greece leaving the Eurozone got most of the attention. Dominico Lombardi, the Director of the Global Economy Project at the Center for International Governance Innovation joins us to discuss Greece as well as other global financial concerns about falling oil prices and the rising dollar.

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the increasing refugee tragedies in the Mediterranean where 10,000 immigrants have been rescued in recent days with more than 500 drowned including a hideous incident in which Muslims tossed Christians overboard. Daryl Grisgraber, who leads Refugees International’s research and advocacy related to the Middle East and North Africa, joins us to discuss divisions in the E.U. over how to respond to the refugee crisis which the Pope has warned is turning the Mediterranean into “a vast cemetery”.

Part 2

Then, with the Republican House passing the so-called “Death Tax Repeal Act of 2015” that will exempt America’s richest families from estate taxes and allow them to pass on their wealth from generation to generation without ever being taxed, we will speak with Jeffrey Winters, a professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and the author of “Oligarchy”. We discuss the power of America’s elite to escape taxes and the political strategy to pass the burden down to the middle class and working Americans, thus making those who are unfairly taxed more angry at taxes than at the one percent who are avoiding paying their fair share.  

Part 3

Then finally we examine the bill to limit vaccine exemptions of school children that is stalled in the California legislature between the Senate Health Committee and the Senate Education Committee, following vocal demonstrations from the anti-vaxxers who don’t want to vaccinate their kids but want them to get a public education where they pose a danger to their classmates. Dr. Peter Katona, a Clinical Professor of Medicine in Infectious Diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine and a Professor of Public Health at UCLA, joins us to discuss whether a special school for the children of those with unconventional belief systems is a viable option.