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January 14 - Obama Calls for More Municipal Broadband Networks; How Citizens Can Reassert Control Over the Public Airwaves; The Republican Move to Undermine the Entire U.S. Regulatory System
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We begin with President Obama’s visit today to Cedar Falls, Iowa where he encouraged the building of municipal broadband networks as was done twenty years ago in this small rural city of 40,000 whose residents enjoy one gigabyte per second broadband, the fastest in the country, comparable to households and businesses in South Korea, Japan and France. Christopher Mitchell, the Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance joins us to discuss Obama’s efforts to stop cable and telecomm monopolies from pushing state laws to prevent competition while the cable and phone companies continue to charge more and more for poorer and much slower Internet service than the rest of the industrialized world has. |
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Then we take a broader look at the media landscape with Victor Pickard, a Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “America’s Battle for Media Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate Libertarianism and the Future of Media Reform”. We look back at efforts to maintain the public interest in and influence over, the public airwaves, that has been rolled back since President Reagan ended the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and discuss how citizens can reassert control over the public airwaves to be better informed and educated as opposed to being passive consumers of advertizing and infotainment. |
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Then finally we look into the Regulatory Accountability Act passed Tuesday by the Republican House that modifies the Administrative Procedures Act which has been in existence for 60 years.Sidney Shapiro, the Vice President of the Center for Progressive Reform and Chair of Administrative Law at Wake Forest University, joins us to discuss this effort to undermine the entire U.S. regulatory system over financial and consumer product protections, public and worker health and safety, and environmental protection by making it easy for corporations to challenge and delay new rules by creating some 74 new procedures and requirements meant to gum up the works of government agencies with layers and layers of extra paperwork. |
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January 13 - Police Officers Charged with Murder; The Fall of Putin and Who or What Might Replace Him; Long Hours, No Vacations, Yet When We Are Idle, We Are the Most Creative
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We begin with a different outcome from recent police shootings where instead of a grand jury deciding not to indict, a District Attorney decided to file murder charges. Mike Gallagher, an Investigative Reporter with the Albuquerque Journal where he has the front page lead story today “Officers Charged with Murder”, joins us to discuss the charges filed by Albuquerque District Attorney Kari Brandenberg against two police officers who shot and killed a homeless man for camping illegally in the foothills of Albuquerque last spring in a case captured on a police helmet camera that shocked the nation. We discuss the upcoming preliminary hearing which is likely to grab national attention and whether there is some payback at work since the DA who brought murder charges against the Albuquerque Police is herself the subject of a police investigation into bribery and intimidation of a witness. |
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Then we examine whether the steep drop in oil prices that are likely to continue throughout the year, could lead to the fall of the Putin regime in Russia since the Putin kleptocracy depends on revenues from oil and gas to line the pockets of Putin’s cronies first, then trickle-down in sufficient amounts to the people in order to maintain the peace. David Kotz, a Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, whose latest book is “The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism”, joins us to discuss his article at The Nation “Plummeting Oil Prices Could Bring Radical Change to Russia” and what political alternatives might emerge out of the chaos in Russia to challenge Putin. |
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Then finally we look into the diminishing returns and human costs of long working hours in America where there are zero mandatory vacation days compared to 30 in France, in a country whose constitution invokes the concept of the pursuit of happiness. Brigid Shulte, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with The Washington Post and the author of “Overwhelmed; Work, Love and Play when No One has the Time”, joins us to discuss her article at CNN “Leisure is the new productivity” and how neuroscience is discovering that when we are idle, our brains are the most active and we are the most creative. |
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January 12 - How Terrorism "Experts" Keep Getting it Wrong; The Double Standard that Will Give Petraeus a Free Pass for Passing Classified Information to his Mistress; Why the Nigerian Government and Military Can't Combat Boko Haram
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We begin with an analysis of reactions and over-reactions to terrorist attacks that often reward the perpetrators by falling into trap the jihadists set meant to drive a wedge between Muslims and the West. Dr. John Mueller, the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at Ohio State University and author of “Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security”, joins us to discuss the latest atrocities in Paris in terms of how the French might react to their so-called 9/11 and the ability of a handful of misfits to capture and hold the attention of the global media as they run amok on the world stage for days on end.
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Then we look into the increasing unlikelihood that General David Petraeus will be indicted for passing classified information to his mistress, as Senators McCain, Lindsey Graham and Diane Feinstein weigh in on his behalf claiming “he has suffered enough”. Melvin Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and author of “Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA” joins us to discuss the tabloid nature of the affair that ended Petraeus’s government career and those coming to his defense while the general “suffers” with million dollar consultancies and hundreds of thousands in lecture fees. |
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Then finally we examine the indifference of the Nigerian government and the incompetence of its military facing the growing threat of Boko Harum terrorists who killed thousands of civilians in a northern border town after the Nigerian military garrison had fled. Ambassador John Campbell, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and the author of “Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink”, joins us to discuss rampant corruption that might explain why Nigeria’s five billion dollar military budget does not reach its soldiers in the field who are often not paid and are rationed with only 30 bullets to face the well-armed fanatics of Boko Harum. |
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January 11 - The French Terrorist's Connections to ISIL and AQAP; Inside the Yemen Connection; A Parisian on Today's Massive Demonstrations in Paris
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We begin with the massive demonstrations in Paris in support of national unity and first get an analysis from a French expert on the Middle East who served as a foreign affairs counselor in the embassies of France in Syria, Tunisia and Jordan. Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East History and Contemporary Studies at the Paris School of International Affairs joins us to discuss the connections that the terrorists who killed the journalists and the hostages at a Kosher market in Paris had to the so-called Islamic State “daesh”, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and why with such extensive records of jihadist activities, the terrorists where able to strike with such coordination and devastation.
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Then we examine the connections to AQAP in Yemen that the terrorists who massacred the journalists at Charlie Hebdo had, and how they were able to travel freely and often to Yemen to receive terrorist training, money and guidance from the American-born cleric Anwar al- Awlaki who was killed in a CIA drone strike in 2011. J. M. Berger a fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World and author of “Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam”, join us to discuss the underground railroad of jihadists coming from the European and American Muslim Diaspora to train in Yemen and Syria to return home with deadly skills and wreak havoc. |
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Then finally, we get a flavor of the huge demonstrations today in Paris as citizens across the ideological, racial and religious spectrum joined together to express their support for the slain journalists, policemen and hostages killed in the Kosher market, and stand in support of liberty, egality and fraternity. Philippe Green, the author of the Ecofrugal Guide which allows consumers to make choices that are both economical and ecological, who was recognized by the city of Paris in 2013 as an “Actor of the Sustainable Paris”, joins us to describe today’s emotional tribute to solidarity and pluralism and discuss the possible political fallout from the past days of mayhem in the streets and suburbs of Paris. |
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January 8 - Political Fallout in France From the Charlie Hebdoe Massacre; The Latest Brazen Attempt by Republicans to Reward Wall Street; How Congress Determines the Fate of the Presidency
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We begin with the political fallout in France from the massacre of journalists and policemen that has French President Hollande calling for a national “unity rally” on Sunday from which the leader of far-right National Front has been excluded much to Marine Le Pen’s annoyance although in the pages of Charlie Hebdo she and her party were regularly described as “a clique of racist and fascist thugs”. Philippe Marliere, a Professor of French and European Politics at University College, London, whose main publications are about the French Socialist Party, French politics and European social democracy, joins us to discuss how French political leaders will resist taking the bait as the Bush/Cheney Administration did when extremists try to drive a wedge between Muslims and the West.
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Then we speak with Dennis Kelleher, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Wall Street watchdog Better Markets Inc., which has been described as a constant thorn in the side of Wall Street. He joins us to discuss the latest brazen attempt by the new Republican House to pay back their Wall Street donors by gutting what is left of the Dodd/Frank financial reform act so that bankers can reward themselves bonuses based on having a two-year reprieve from unloading their riskiest holdings know as collateralized loan obligations. We look into the unusual defeat of this gift to Wall Street and how and when the Republicans and some Democrats will try again to do Wall Street’s bidding. |
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Then finally we examine comparisons between the “Great Society” presidency of Lyndon Johnson and the Obama presidency where in both cases in appears that at the end of the day, Congress determines the fate of the presidency. Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and author of the new book, just out, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society”, joins us to discuss why when Clinton and Obama enjoyed Democratic control of the House and Senate, they were unable to get through a fraction of the legislation that LBJ got passed. |
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